


This Is Your Choice

by Pandoras_loss



Series: Changing Fate series [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, bad language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-06 12:44:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 36
Words: 113,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8751865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandoras_loss/pseuds/Pandoras_loss
Summary: Alternate Universe of Supernatural season 4.  Elsbeth Foley wakes up one morning to find she's been transported to the universe of her favorite TV show, but is it just a show, or was she shown the future by something that wanted her to change things, and how much about her life does she really remember?  Can she convince the Winchesters that killing Lilith is a bad idea, or will she find that sometimes first impressions are impossible to change when Fate is against you?
First book in the series.  There is language and violence.





	1. Bad First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, I do not own the rights or credit for creating Supernatural or the characters from the show, including: Sam and Dean Winchester, Castiel, Bobby Singer, Ellen and Jo Harvelle, Ruby, Chuck, Adam Milligan, Uriel, Alistair, Joshua, or Pamela Barnes, to name a few.
> 
> Original characters created by me: Rachel McCoy, Elsbeth (Beth) Foley, Stephen Riley, and Ivan and Yuri.
> 
> Chapters are written in the the first person when the point of view comes from Beth, and alternating chapters are written in the third person when the point of view comes from another character that is the focus. Typically, the focus of the third person chapters is mentioned in the first or second sentence.

_“The choice is yours, and yours alone, Rachel.” Joshua seemed all right. Kind. He reminded me of my high school history teacher, one of the few who took an active interest in my education when I was growing up. Probably wasn’t an accident, because it was no small thing he was asking of me, and what better way to get me to go along with it than to have somebody very similar to someone I admired pitch it?_

_“Doesn’t seem like much of a choice. I can either stay up here and sit the Apocalypse out, while she’s down there in my place, or I can join up with her and cease to exist, because she’s the ‘original,’ whatever that means. I don’t know what her game is, but I do know she’s scammed you, and you’re all too stupid to know it. All powerful beings my ass . . . Maybe that’d been a bit too harsh. Joshua looked apologetic, but chose not to answer, and I decided to back off a bit. “Will it hurt if I go with option B?”_

_Joshua smiled down at me thoughtfully. “No, you just won’t be aware of anything anymore. No pain involved. No thoughts to think.” Except the thoughts she gets to control. This is totally unfair. “You will always be remembered by those who have loved you, so you will carry on in that way, and all will be revealed to your loved ones in due time.”_

_What do I care if I’m not around to see it? “How is it going to be ‘revealed’?” Is she gonna tell them?_

_“There is an angel that can be trusted and who has already been charged with raising Dean from Hell. He will pass it onto Dean, and Dean will decide who else may know.” That means it’ll be a big fat nobody. Dean was such a dick, and now he was getting out, but I was stuck up here. If Joshua wanted me to sign on for what he was suggesting, he probably would have had better luck telling me that Sammy would find out first and decide who could know. Joshua wants me to do this, but it isn’t for my benefit. It’s for hers, and he still hasn’t told me why she’s so important. Well, she can go fuck herself and see how she gets along down there bein’ half of what she’s supposed to be the way I apparently did._

_She may have found a way to stack the deck in her favor, but I had an ace in the hole with Raphael that she and Joshua didn’t know about. “Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want her to have anything from me. She hasn’t earned it. I don’t even want her to have my name. Think I’ll go find the best seats in Heaven to watch it all burn to the ground. When that happens, and it will happen, you’ll wish it had been me down there instead of her. You can send me back to where I’m supposed to be now.” And just like that, I was back with my family at Christmas when I was 9._

__

\----------------------------------------

____

_4 months later_

__

“Nearly home, now. Just need to keep it between the lines a little longer.“ I took another pull off my electronic cigarette, and cranked up The Pixies to keep myself awake. It was nearly 4 o’clock in the morning. I’d been trying to pull another all-nighter in my office to get my thesis done, but all-nighters were a lot harder to do than when I was in high school, so it wasn’t a full night. Eh, whatever. I should be done with my final corrections tomorrow. Then I’d officially be able to submit and be Elsbeth Foley, PhD.

I needed to take the dog out for another walk. I’d come home a couple times throughout the day to feed him, walk him, and give him some attention, but I felt guilty for leaving him here alone, and if I wanted to sleep in, I could buy a couple more hours if I did it now. I squeezed into the last parking space along my narrow road, and before my keys had even hit the lock on my front door, I heard him clamoring on the wood floor just inside. He always knew the sound of my car. I grabbed his lead, secured it to his collar, and was promptly dragged down the road behind him as he went wherever he wanted. He definitely thought our walks were for taking me out rather than the other way around. When we got back about 20 minutes later, he went straight upstairs to his bed, but I still had a couple of things to do first. Teeth brushed, I pulled my straight, chocolate-brown hair up into a messy bun, and sat on the couch to check my email before bed. I didn’t have anything in my inbox, so I couldn’t have been there long, but somehow I managed to fall asleep.

Maybe sleeping on the couch is what led to me having the bizzaro dream I was having now, because I rarely dreamed about the States anymore. I hadn’t lived there in almost 10 years. I moved to the UK first and landed in Ireland 5 years ago. I’d only been back a handful of times, so I felt kind of out of the loop on how things progressed there when I did go back. _Something tells me that places, like this, haven’t changed much in the last 30 years._ The room was large and tacky with cowboy hats hanging on the walls and little cowboys with lassos on the curtains. I didn’t even want to think about what stains were probably all over the floor and bedspread. Luckily, this was a dream, or I would’ve been grossed out by whatever drool had been left behind on the communal pillow just beneath the clean-ish linen under my head.

I got off the bed and went to the door, so I could explore more of my dream. I secretly hoped that when I opened the door, I’d end up in another trippy place with giant marshmallows flying through the air and was disappointed to see that everything outside looked like it was just a continuation of the drab cowboy-motel dream. I didn’t recognize anything that I saw. It was just a standard street in small-to-medium-town America. There were some local business-type buildings, some small houses lining the street, a gas station, and another motel down the road that looked similar to the one I was in at the moment. There was a diner just past that on the opposite side of the road, so I walked towards it to see if I could figure out where I was.

On my way there, I noticed a black Impala in the car park of the other motel and decided to take a mini-detour. You could say I was drawn towards it. That may have been because it looked exactly like the car from my favorite show, _Supernatural_. I’d probably tell people my favorite show was _Breaking Bad_ , because that show was awesome, and it sounds cooler, but really it was _Supernatural_. Anyway, I admired the car and came to the conclusion that since this was my dream, this was my car, and I wanted to drive it. That’s when the reflection of me in the window got some company. One of the new reflections was of a woman and the other was a tall man who looked like . . . I started to turn to confirm it, and that’s when everything went dark.

I woke up to the sound of a woman saying, “You’re sure she died?”

A man’s voice answered, “I thought so,” and I was thoroughly confused. _Are they talking about me? I’m not dead. At least I don’t think I am. If there were such a thing as an afterlife, then my head wouldn’t hurt if I were in said afterlife, right?_ I didn’t know. Having had no first hand experience with being in an afterlife kinda left me unprepared to answer that definitively.

I decided to keep my eyes closed for a couple of minutes, so I could hear if they had anything else to say and realized that my arms and legs were tied to the chair. _Is this going to turn into some kind of a kinky dream? Uh. No thanks. So not in the mood right now._

“Well, I don’t understand why we even have to talk to her. We have more important things to do, or did you forget why we’re here,” the woman huffed.

“I have to know who this is! What if it’s really her?” The man, sounded like, Sam Winchester, and that’s whom I’d thought owned the second reflection I saw out by the car. _I wonder who the woman is._ I almost opened my eyes to check, but I didn’t have to wait long to find out. “Come on, Ruby. I’m only asking for like 30 minutes. Then I’ll know, and we can get back to it!”

I felt someone brush by my arm and stand behind me. “Fine. But don’t get attached. We’ll probably have to kill whatever she is. I’ll be in here taking a shower, while you do whatever it is that you have to do. Call if you need me.”

I heard the door shut and the water start running before Sam spoke up. “I know you’re awake. We need to talk.” Opening my eyes, I took in my new surroundings and noticed this room wasn’t much better than my cowboy room. Everything felt even more surreal with a walking, talking, lifesized model of a TV character I was familiar with standing in front of me. With my eyes closed, it seemed like maybe I could’ve left an episode playing on my laptop, and it was being incorporated into my dream, but seeing and hearing him talk was a lot to take in.

Rationally, this couldn’t be anything other than a dream . . . or a hallucination. Maybe I’d gotten ahold of water laced with LSD from the vending machine at the university or I’d accidentally eaten shrooms when I snagged a piece of cake from the desk next to mine. If that was the case, then I was lucky to get home before the effects kicked in. I could have had an accident or run over someone. That’s what I was thinking when Sam knelt in front of me, so I couldn’t look anywhere but at him, and him being so up close and personal made his gaze quite intimidating. I could see the sadness and pain hidden behind a mask of anger. _This is so wrong. Where are my damn marshmallows?_

“Who are you?” he asked in a low menacing tone.

“My name is Elsbeth Foley. I was born in Indiana. I moved around a lot growing up. I live in Ireland now. I should be getting my PhD any day.“ It’s not like I was a spy who needed to hide my identity or anything, so I didn’t mind filling him in on my details.

He stood up and got something from his bag. “Drink this.”

Uh, easier said than done. “I’m kinda tied up at the moment, so . . .” I left my sentence hanging with what I thought was some subtle humor.

He didn’t find it funny. “I didn’t say you had a choice.” _I did not see this dream going in a water-boarding direction._ I guess I could add the senses of touch and taste to whatever I was experiencing, because I could feel the water being poured down my throat, and well . . . it tasted like water. I was so not going to take any more cake from Garrett’s desk if this is what I had to look forward to the next time. This was not a fun trip.

Sam looked at me quizzically after not getting the response he was expecting. “I’m not a demon, and if I was don’t you think that Ruby would have been able to tell?” His jaw clenched and he stalked back to his bag. He came back with a silver knife and sliced it across the back of my wrist, but other than the fresh trail of blood, nothing unusual happened. “I’m not a shapeshifter either.”

Suddenly, he put his hands on either side of the chair and got in my face. “If you’re this Elsbeth Foley from Indiana, then how do you know about demons and shapeshifters?” He thought he had me. I could tell by the glint in his eye, and his smugness irritated me.

“Well, I have watched the show from seasons 1 through 10 several times over, so I know a lot about the lore in the _Supernatural_ universe, and you’re in my trippy-ass dream, so I think you should let me go now.”

“This isn’t a dream!” He sounded more annoyed than angry, but before I could answer, there was a knock at the door. Ruby rushed out of the bathroom and opened it, so whoever it was couldn’t see me tied up behind her. She made like there should be a pizza being delivered, and I realized what was about to happen. I knew that it was Dean and Bobby and that Dean had just been brought back from Hell. I loved this scene . . . mostly. Since this was my dream, I decided to tweak it to make it better.

Sam turned his back to me, as he heard his brother’s voice. All in all, he looked equal parts hopeful, shocked, and like a little boy as he went around the door to see if it was really Dean. Dean came into the room, and they had a moment that was cut short when Sam lunged at Dean with the knife. “Who are you?”

Dean went on the defensive and shouted, “What you didn’t do this?” _Nope, he sure didn’t._

“Do what?" _The obvious?_

Bobby pulled Sam away, saying “I’ve been through this already, Sam. It’s him. It’s really him.” It was kind of like watching the show in surround sound, but way better.

Sam calmed down as what Bobby had said sunk in, and then he and Dean hugged just before Ruby went to leave. That was the best part of the scene, the hug . . . not the Ruby leaving thing. It always bothered me that she and Sam pretended like she was a random fling. Maybe Lucifer wouldn’t have gotten released, or Sam and Dean’s relationship wouldn’t have been fractured if Sam had just been honest about Ruby from the beginning, so I decided to change that.

Everyone had forgotten that I was there, so when I said, “You know Sam, you should just tell Dean that was Ruby, that you guys are sleeping together, you’ve started drinking her blood every so often to enhance your powers, and now you can now exorcise demons with your mind,” I expected Dean to look at me in confusion, like he’d just realized I was there. I even expected him to look at his brother to see if what I’d said was true. The shame was written all over Sam’s face, and Dean went from looking lost for about a second to angry. What I didn’t expect was Sam’s response. I don’t know what he yelled at me. I was more focused on the way he lunged at me. His hands wrapped around my throat, and there was nothing I could do to stop him or stop the way I fell backwards in the chair. Just before my head hit the nightstand behind me, my last thoughts were, _“Fuck, that actually hurts.”_


	2. Welcome Back

Dean and Bobby pulled Sam off of Rachel, and Dean checked her for a pulse. That’d hurt like a bitch when she woke up, but she’d live. He needed a little more time to process what she’d said about Sam before he said anything to Sam about it, so he cut her loose and took his time putting her on the bed. “The last I knew,” he said turning to face his brother, “you weren’t going to use your demon powers anymore. It was practically my last request, and now you’re amping them up by . . . and let me see if I’ve got this straight . . . you’re drinking demon blood now? And what the hell happened with you and Rachel? I know she’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but -”

Sam stepped toe-to-toe with him. “I did everything I could to try and get you out of Hell your way . . . Dad’s way. And all it led to was one dead end after another, but I had something else I could use to make Lilith pay. So, yeah, I’ve been making my powers stronger to get that done. And that’s not Rachel! Rachel is dead!”

At that, Dean stopped short, “What?” He glanced over his shoulder at the woman on the bed before he looked to Bobby for confirmation. The older man looked away, so Dean guessed he had his answer. “I’ve been with you for almost 2 days. You didn’t think to tell me on the drive here? What happened?”

Bobby looked at him regretfully before looking at Sam to back him up. “With you just gettin’ back, I didn’t wanna . . . It was the night you died . . . Rachel didn’t make it out of there.”

Sam filled in a few more of the blanks. “After the hellhounds . . . Lilith turned on me and Rach and there was this bright light. It didn’t do anything to me, but I heard Rachel screaming, and when the light was gone, she was . . . she didn’t make it, and Lilith left. We, uh, we buried you next to each other.”

“I saw the second cross when I got out. I thought you and Rach each put one there. I didn’t think . . .” Dean said absentmindedly, while running his hand through his hair and checking the chick out again. She sure looked like Rachel. “I mean it could be her, right? I’m here.”

He turned back towards Sam, and Sam looked past him towards the bed. “I don’t know. I just found her an hour ago. Holy water didn’t do anything to her, and she’s not a shifter. She says her name is Elsbeth Foley and that she moved overseas 10 years ago. I don’t know if Ruby hit her harder than I thought or not, but she thinks she’s dreaming. She doesn’t act like Rach. I don’t think it’s her, but she knows things about lore a normal person wouldn’t, and she was born in Indiana too. I didn’t have a chance to ask where.”

Dean sighed and sat down in the chair next to the bed feeling the weight of everything start to take hold. Not exactly the reunion he’d thought it’d be. “I guess we’ll just have to wait until she wakes up to get some answers. I’ll keep an eye on her. Bobby, why don’t you go book a room, and you and Sam can share tonight.”

Slowly grabbing his bags and heading toward the door, Sam turned before leaving. “Alright, uh, I’ll see you in the morning, I guess. Maybe we can figure out what brought you back then.” Well, if it wasn’t Sam, then yeah, they needed to find out what brought him back and why.

“Yeah . . . and Sam, don’t think this means I forgot what we were talkin’ about.“ No way were they just gonna sweep this under the rug. Dean needed to adjust to everything. Then he’d sort it.

Sam looked down in regret and nodded just as Bobby got back saying, “Room 106. Right next door.”

After they were alone, he glanced over at the woman’s face. He’d know Sam anywhere after any length of time, and he knew Bobby was Bobby, but . . . to be honest after being in Hell so long . . . this chick looked like Rachel, but some things were off. She was prettier, but less ‘smack you upside the head’ sexy. She’d gone back to her natural hair color that he preferred to the black, neon red, or sometimes blonde . . . she was always changing it up. She didn’t have bangs the way Rachel did, but her hair was framed around her face, which looked better. Everything else though . . . everything else was almost the same as he remembered as far as her facial features and body type went . . . not the clothes. Rachel wouldn’t be caught dead in those, not that they looked bad on her. He hadn’t had a chance to look earlier, but he wondered if her eyes were a bluish-grey, and he wondered if this girl had a scar just along her hairline from that wendigo hunt.

He and Rachel had been on a handful of hunts together by that point. They were always the hunts his Dad sent him on solo. She’d show up and stick around to help out if it looked like a big hunt or if he wanted the company. He’d heard about her first when he was 16. His dad came back from a werewolf-hunt-gone-wrong where his Dad had only been able to save one 15-year-old girl from a family of 6. His Dad hadn’t taken her with him, because he’d figured she was old enough to take care of herself, and at the time, Dean had wondered what happened to her, but soon forgot until he ran into her on a hunt for a spirit in Colorado when he was 24. He told her he could handle it and that he didn’t need help from someone who was probably there on a dare from her friends.

In his defense, she was only about 5’4”, looked younger than 23, and seemed like the furthest thing from a hunter you could find, but when she started filling him in on her history to let him know she could handle herself, the details of the story sounded familiar. When she said a man named John Winchester had saved her, he told her that was his Dad, and she’d said, “I have to pay your old man back sometime. Might as well start by keeping his ass of a son safe.” Things had gone well after that, and they decided to work together in the future if they ever ran into each other again.

The scar on her forehead had been his fault. They’d been arguing about the location of a wendigo’s lair on a hunt in Michigan a year later, and he’d failed to notice that she was no longer with him until he’d turned to make his point. Her homemade flamethrower was on the ground about 100 feet back, and he’d had to trust his instincts rather go off of what she’d been saying to find her. To cover the relief he felt at finding her, he made sure him being right was the first thing he said to her after toasting that wendigo and cutting her down. Of course as soon as he saw her head needed several stitches the guilt seeped in, but she told him she was glad he was right . . . for a change.

After that he’d looked forward to solo hunts just so he could meet up with her again, but it wasn’t until maybe a month before his Dad had disappeared that she actually agreed to anything more than that. She was with him when his Dad went missing and stayed with him to go get Sam. She and Sam hit it off straight away, and after what happened to Jessica, Sam latched onto Rachel, so Dean stayed with her even if things did go south between them pretty fast . . . it hadn’t all be been bad. It was hard to remember the good times when the last year had been so awful, but he knew that there were times those first couple of years when the good had been worth wading through the bad to find. His deal had ruined what little they’d had before that, but she was still family.

He could use her help for this thing with Sam. Rachel was the only other person Sam would listen to about anything that mattered. Maybe he could deal with getting out of Hell better if she was here to help with Sam . . . as long as she didn’t tell Sam to go for it with the demon blood, which she was just as likely to do to piss him off . . . maybe he could convince her to go along with him on it this time . . . she’d never liked Ruby, so he could play up to that.

He decided to check to see if the scar was there. He had to know. He slowly leaned over her to look and released his breath when he saw the scar wasn’t there. _It doesn’t matter. Look at me. Not a scratch on me except for that freaky burn on my shoulder. Gotta be the same thing._ He must’ve lingered longer than he thought, because the next thing he knew, he heard her inhale sharply. _Yep, blue-grey._


	3. Even Worse First Impressions

I woke up when I felt a puff of air on my face, and it was a struggle, but I forced my eyes to open, so I could see what caused it and found Dean Winchester looking down at me. I gasped, partially because who wouldn’t in that situation, and partially because I think I was finally starting to get that this wasn’t a dream.

Dean made a hasty retreat to the chair next to the bed so I rolled my head to look at him and say something . . . anything would’ve worked, but whatever I tried to say came out more like a squeak. _Why’d I even bother?_ He got up and found a water bottle to hand me, so I sat up to drink it and wished that I hadn’t. The whole room went a little wobbly. I felt the back of my head, and was a little surprised to find a second bump. That one must’ve been from the first time I got knocked out. The second, wetter one must be from the nightstand. I glanced at the table, and there was a little blood on it, so yeah, that one came from the nightstand.

Dean was waiting, so I ignored the spins I was having, and unscrewed the cap, took a sip, and tried again in a barely audible whisper, “Hi, I, uh, I think Sam and I got off on the wrong foot . . . I probably shouldn’t –“ I stopped myself, because I thought about who I was talking to here.

“Shouldn’t have said he’s on the demon blood?”

 _What? No._ “I shouldn’t have thought about taking the Impala . . . I thought since it was my dream, she was my car.”

He didn’t look like he knew what to do with that. “That’s what you were doing when they found you?”

I looked down at the bottle in my hands and bit the inside of my cheek before I said, “Technically, I was checking her out, and then I decided to take her, but I got hit in the head before I could.”

I took another sip and gave him a side-glance before looking back down at the water bottle and continuing in the loudest voice I could muster, “Sam told you what I told him before you got here?”

Dean sat forward and said, “Why don’t you fill me in on what you told him?” _Sam told him what I said. He just doesn’t buy it. I wouldn’t either._

“I fell asleep on the couch after walking my dog and woke up in a cowboy motel down the street from here.”

“How’d you know all that stuff about Sam.”

I took a deep breath before saying, “I’ve seen all of this on a TV show about you and Sam, and I watched it a lot . . . Practically had it memorized, but now that I think about it, the more recent seasons are getting a little fuzzy. I might’ve had them knocked out of my head.”

I glanced at him, and his expression was blank. “I know things about you too.” _God, I’m such an idiot. Why’d I say that?_

“Yeah? Try me.” _Beth shut up._

“I don’t wanna say. You’ll get mad.” I was starting to find my voice a bit more . . . it wasn’t so much a whisper anymore . . . now it was just hoarse and quiet.

“Think I can handle it,” he said with a cocky grin, that I knew wasn’t going to stay there for long if I said what I was about to say, but if it was the only way to get him to believe me . . . 

“Well, I know you were in Hell.”

He snorted. “Is that all you’ve got, because - “

I looked away from him and said, “I want you to know that I won’t ever tell another person what I’m about to tell you. I know that here it was 4 months, but there it was like 40 years. I know that every day you were ripped apart piece-by-piece until there was nothing left, and then it would start all over again if you didn’t agree to get off the rack. I know that after 30 years you did and started doing it yourself.” I heard him inhale sharply and move, but carried on without looking, “Uh . . . I also know something else that I don’t want to say, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I think I’m nervous, and I want you to believe me . . . Kind of feel like I’ve been arrested, and I didn’t do anything wrong, but all of the evidence is stacked against me.” I finally looked over in his direction.

He was standing with his back to me and had his hands clasped behind his head. He looked defeated. “Well, you’ve said that much, you might as well say the rest.” _He sounds defeated too._ I thought of the cocky grin he’d given me before I’d started talking and felt really bad that I’d done that to him.

“I don’t want to.” I really didn’t.

“No . . . I wanna hear it,” he said in a detached voice. I kept my eyes on him and started inching to the other side of the bed.

“Well, I’m only going to tell you, because I don’t want Alistair to say it to you when he starts walking around up here.” I noticed the flinch at the mention of Alistair’s name but continued on warily, “Lucifer and The Apocalypse are coming. It’s why you were brought back. There are rituals that have to be done before Lucifer can be released from his cage. They’re called seals. They act like locks on his cage, and none of them but the last one matters. All of them could break but that one, and he’ll stay where he is. The last one is killing Lilith. If that happens, then Lucifer will walk free. And there is a prophecy about the first seal that says something, like, and I’m paraphrasing here, but a righteous man shedding blood in Hell is when the first seal broke, and that same righteous man is the only one who can stop the Apocalypse. That man is you, and I know it sounds like a lot, but really, I think that it’s you that has to stop it, because you’re the only one who can get through to Sam when he –“ I was going to say he was the only one who could get through to Sam when Lucifer used him as a vessel or even before that if he could get Sam to not kill Lilith but was cut off when Dean suddenly turned and launched himself at me.

I was expecting it. That’s why I was watching him to begin with, so when he jumped, I flew off the bed. I wasn’t quite fast enough to make it to the door before he grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. I ducked my head and brought my hands up reflexively, so I could protect my throat and head after what had happened with Sam, but he grabbed my wrists in a death lock and pushed them down between us. “We’re not done yet . . . Sit down until I tell you to get up, or I’m going to gut you. Do you understand me?“ I nodded in response, but kept my head turned away submissively. It seemed like the smart play. Well, that, and I didn’t feel very good.

“I think I’m going to get sick.” Out of all the things I could’ve possibly said in that second, I think that was just about the last thing he expected. I tried to get out an explanation, but only managed, “My head,” before I gagged, and he quickly let me go and took a giant step back. I put my hands on my knees to dry-heave, and he started to complain about me puking in the room. I chose that as my moment to run to the bathroom. I barely got the door locked before he started pounding on the other side of it. “What? You wanna hold my hair?” He stopped pounding on the door, and I picked up the metallic trashcan. Instead of pounding, he decided to try knocking and asked if I wanted company. _Nice try, but you’re not getting in here unless you break that door down._ “No. Go away. I don’t want you to hear me.” I turned on the water in the bathtub and said, “I need a bath. Maybe that’ll help. You’re stressing me out.” I heard him mutter something, and then I started smashing the window open with the trashcan. The water helped, but there was no way to totally muffle that sound. He was back to pounding and maybe kicking in no time.

I broke the window, and pulled my sleeves down over my hands to break out more glass around the edges, but that’s when the door swung open. _Time’s up. Forget about the glass._ I wiggled out of the window headfirst and fell on my shoulder before landing on my back on the ground outside just as he stuck his head out the window. _That was close. Now what?_ I looked up at him from where I lay on the ground to see what he’d do next. He couldn’t fit through the window, or I didn’t think he could, and apparently he didn’t think he could either, because he growled in frustration before he disappeared from my view. He knew where I was and would be able to follow my footprints if I went anywhere, and I bet he was a lot faster than me, so when he left, it gave me the chance to get up and hop back through the broken window. Once I was inside, I grabbed a couple of hand towels to wrap around my wrists, wrote a quick note on the bathroom mirror with soap, and headed to the front door of the motel room to see if the coast was clear outside.

It was, and I was free! _Man, I must’ve freaked him out with all of the Hell talk for that to work . . . Nah, he’s just a nice guy . . . and he didn’t want you to puke on him._ I sprinted out the door and across the road towards the building across the street where I stopped to catch my breath behind a shrub and watched as Dean came back around the front of the motel. He went in through the door and must have seen something that let him know I’d gone out that way, because he came back out and started looking around after only a few seconds. _Keep moving._ I turned and squished my way into the muddy woods behind me, trying to cover my tracks as I went.


	4. Searching For Answers

As soon as Dean came back into the room, he saw her muddy footprints and leaves littering the carpet. Should’ve known that’s the reason her footprints hadn’t gone anywhere. Teleport? Spell to make her vanish? No, she just climbed back in through the damn window. Just back and he was already fucking up. He was better than this. He should’ve never let her make it to the bathroom. He needed to find her, and to do that, he was going to need help, so he ran to 106 and pounded on the door until he heard the deadbolt unlock. Rushing into the room, he saw Sam quickly putting his boots on, but Bobby was already ready to go. “What happened?” his brother asked standing to follow him out the door.

“She, uh, she got away. She laid out some home truths for me too, and I sort of lost it.”

After a quick search of the area on foot, they piled into the Impala, and Sam asked,“What makes you think we’ll find her now? Maybe she did what she was supposed to do, wreak havoc on us as soon as you got back, and now she’s gone.”

“I don’t know. We can’t just let her get away.” She had answers Dean needed.

“It ever cross you two’s mind that she is exactly what she says she is?” Bobby piped up from the backseat. Both brothers looked at him in surprise. “Look, I’m not saying she’s the best at keeping her yap shut, but maybe she’s tellin’ the truth. Well, as far as she knows she is. I don’t know. Maybe she’s a psychic or somethin’. Anyway, I’m with Sam. I don’t think we’re ever gonna find her."

An hour later and after still no sign of her, they headed back to the motel to get some sleep. They had a big day ahead of them. They needed to find out what pulled him out of the pit. Dean hadn’t wanted to give up the search, because if they found her, something told him that she’d be able to tell him what brought him back, but Sam and Bobby didn’t see much point. He’d also made the mistake of telling Sam what she’d said about not killing Lilith, and that had been all Sam needed to hear to solidify his distrust of her. Sam would never be anything other than skeptical of her now. It bothered Dean. It’s not like he’d planned on keeping her around long himself. He wasn’t going to kill her or anything, just get some answers and send her on her way, but Sam . . . if Sam saw her again, he wasn’t entirely sure what would happen now that Sam was convinced she was working for Lilith.

He wondered if he’d be able to get through to his brother on this demon blood thing before it was too late. He never thought Sam would . . . ugh, demon blood? Seriously? There was off the reservation, and then there was off the reservation . . . he had to get Sam to stop before Sam passed some point of no return. Dean might have been willing to sacrifice himself many times over for Sam, but he wouldn’t let his brother turn into a monster. For what? Revenge? He was back now. Maybe him being back would be enough to get Sam off of this. Or maybe Sam needed some tough love to get him away from Ruby? Ruby, now that was one bitch Dean wanted to gank the next chance he got. He wondered how long it would’ve taken him to find out what those two had been up to while he was away if Beth . . . Elsbeth hadn’t said anything. Days? Weeks? Months? Until it was too late?

Going back to the room alone, Dean threw his coat on the foot of the bed and walked to the bathroom to shut off the bath that was still running. That had caught him off guard. Not that she would use it to make a break for it. He’d expected her to try and get out of the bathroom the second she locked the door. He hadn’t been expecting her to say he’d stressed her out, so she had to take a bath . . . it’d made him want to come up with some kind of a response to something that sounded so stupid, but he hadn’t had time to come up with anything good before she started smashing the window. Turning, he saw the window and noticed blood on the glass, wall, and floor. She must have cut herself pretty bad. After everything she brought up for him with Alistair and Hell, the blood added to the mix of memories from Hell, so he went to the sink to throw water against his face and saw a message on the mirror. He read through it a couple of times, unsure of why she took the time to write it, or of what it really meant. _Castiel brought you back._ Who was Castiel? A demon maybe? He’d find out soon enough now that he had a name.

As he entered the room and sat on the edge of the bed, his thoughts kept returning to everything that Beth had said. How could she have possibly known what happened in Hell? Everything he had done? She didn’t want them to kill Lilith, but his gut was telling him that she wasn’t evil. Holy water didn’t do anything to her, but then holy water didn’t do anything to the yellow-eyed demon either. He didn’t think she was a demon, or she wouldn’t have been knocked out the way she was. She could be a witch or some kind of a pagan goddess backing Lilith for some reason, but that didn’t feel right. He thought about what Bobby had said. Maybe she was a psychic. Then why did she look like Rachel? Thinking back on her reaction when he lost it, he remembered her cowering away from him. A momentary pang of guilt hit him. A monster, witch, or goddess would have fought back, been stronger, thrown some magic at him. She threatened to throw up on him. Sam had tested for silver, so she wasn’t a shifter.

He remembered meeting Missouri, and she was the real thing, so it was possible that Beth was a psychic. He wasn’t sure. Maybe he didn’t want to be. If she was, then not only was the Apocalypse about to kick off, but it meant he was the one who started it and now had to finish it. If she was right, he’d know soon enough. The signs would have to start popping up soon, but he couldn’t do anything about that right now. He knew for a fact that sleep wasn’t an option. He’d tried that once since he’d been back, and the nightmares hadn’t let him rest more than 20 minutes at a time. Might as well be doing something worthwhile rather than dealing with all that shit. “Fuck it,” he sighed grabbing his jacket.

Standing at the motel door, he evaluated his options. If he was running for his life and couldn’t defend himself, he wouldn’t have gone left or right, because he wouldn’t have wanted to risk running into his attacker if he didn’t know which way his attacker was gonna come from. _Attacker. Is that what I am now? Yeah, I guess bein’ in Hell will do that to you._ What if he turned into that thing he was becoming down there? No, he wouldn’t let it happen. He couldn’t. It’s not what he wanted to be. Sam needed him, and he had too many wrongs to right. Starting with this one . . . So, not right or left and not down the road. There was nowhere to hide near here. The streetlights were too bright, and they’d searched all the roads, streets, and allys near here. Up? If she were human, she would’ve struggled to get up on the roof given her height and the amount of time she had to work with before he came back around the front of the motel. Scratch going on the roof for now. That left straight ahead. He studied the garage on the other side of the road. It was bathed in light, no hidden corners. Behind it though . . . looked like there might be a park or some woods. Did she hop the fence? He decided to get a closer look.

Maybe she wasn’t human, cause there’s no way she could’ve jumped that fence in the time it took for him to come back to the room if she stopped to leave him a damn note on the mirror . . . unless she hid behind these bushes until they left. He felt his heart drop. If that’s what she did, then she would’ve found a car or . . . sonofabitch . . . there was a hole in the fence behind the bushes. He flipped his flashlight on and checked the bush to see if there was any sign that she’d been here and caught sight of some blood on a few of the leaves. He looked back at the parking lot to see if there were the same number of cars here now as there were earlier. He wasn’t sure. Hadn’t really been paying attention to them. There were a few other places around here where she could’ve gone to steal a car too . . . Is that what she did, or did she go into the woods? He looked for some pieces of fabric around the hole that might tell him she went into the woods, but he didn’t see any. He flashed the beam of his flashlight through the hole and studied the ground. It was pretty muddy . . . maybe a little too smooth, like someone was trying to cover her tracks? Or was that wishful thinking? It’s the only thing he had, so for now, that’s the way he was going. If he didn’t find anything in an hour, he could turn around and go start knocking on doors to find out if anybody’s car was stolen. Maybe she’d had a car stashed near here. They could pull up surveillance from some of these places in the morning and see if she’d driven her own car out of here.

Walking through the trees after what felt like hours, his eyes searched for more signs that she’d been this way, and he spotted something new to the left that he could follow. She’d tried to cover her tracks and had done a pretty good job, but he’d been tracking since he was a kid. Maybe even before he learned how to hold a gun, so he was better than most would’ve been at following her trail. He stopped when he saw of a log with leaves piled against it on the far side. Walking around the side of the log, he caught sight of the light grey of her hoodie hidden under the leaves and snorted. _Nice try._

She might’ve pulled it off if the sun wasn’t coming up. He moved closer to her to get a better look, and the sight of her sleeping stopped him. Maybe it was the light, but it seemed more obvious now. She definitely wasn’t Rachel. Maybe they were sisters and didn’t know it? They had to be related some how, because they looked too alike not to be, and she showed up when he did for a reason. Compared to Rachel, she looked more . . . innocent . . . she didn’t have a hard edge to her at all . . . but looks could be deceiving. He already knew she could think fast on her feet. Stepping back to give her space, so she didn’t get intimidated, but not so much room that she could get away, he mustered his charm. “Rise and shine.”

He watched her jolt awake and peek at him through her hair before she looked to see if there was a way out. She must’ve decided that she couldn’t get away, because she sat up slowly and groaned, “Ohhhh, won’t you just leave me alone? Let me die on my own terms of hypothermia . . . or a bear attack. Don’t need you helping me along.” _Bear attack? Where the hell does she think she is? Maybe she’s really just crazy._ But how did she know that stuff about him and Sam? Maybe she’d been driven crazy by knowing things like that? Missouri had it in check, but maybe being a psychic wasn’t for everyone.

“No dying today. I promise.” He bent down to offer her a hand up, and she eyed his hand suspiciously.

“What changed your mind?” Well, he hadn’t planned on killing her, or he would have.

“I don’t know. Somethin’ Bobby said,” he replied with a sigh before he looked away and wondered how long he should offer her help up if she wasn’t going to take it.

“I’ll have to thank him the next time I see him then.” Finally she took his hand and got to her feet. She still didn’t trust him, but that was fine, because he didn’t trust her either.

They stood there awkwardly refusing to look at one another until he broke the ice by saying, “You hungry?”

“Yeah, but I don’t have any money. No ID either. Looks like I left it behind when I woke up yesterday in this – whatever this is . . . I’m going with a different planet. Earth must’ve picked up satellite waves from this planet, and the CW just stole them and put them on TV, and -”

She slumped a little when he said, “This is Earth.”

Then she nodded, like that made sense, and looked around at the trees before she said, “Alternate universe it is then.” _She’s definitely crazy._

"Oh, yeah? What color are the trees on your Earth?” She smiled . . . that right there proved she wasn’t Rachel. It was a genuine smile. It looked good on her.

“Well, my Earth looks exactly the same as this Earth, except I don’t think I’ve ever been in a motel decked out in cowboy décor, but I’m sure those motels existed there too.” _Cowboy décor? Right. The motel she said she woke up in down the street._ When he and Sam checked earlier, the guy there said he never saw her.

“My shout. I think I owe you for last night,” Dean said turning toward civilization.

“I can’t let you pay for everything while I’m around. However long that is,” she replied walking with him. She was fishing for answers he didn’t have.

“Nice job covering your tracks.” _That sounded dumb. She must think I’m an idiot._

“Must not have been too good of a job. You still found me,” she grumbled while picking leaves off of her shirt.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. I’m just that good,” he said with a small shake of his head and a self-assured grin. She was still sizing him up, but she smiled briefly.

“You’re really okay with getting me breakfast?” Yeah. Something told him that if he wanted to get answers out of her, he’d get them easier if he sat back and let her talk. Didn’t have to go with a hardcore interrogation on her.

“Yeah, as long as you promise not to try and steal my car again.” There was that smile again.

“I promise . . . I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since . . . well, I think it was some cake I stole in my office the night before last . . . At first I thought the guy I stole it off of laced it with shrooms and sent me on a bad trip. How long am I going to be around anyway?” She was funnier than Rachel.

“I’ve got some more questions, but Sam . . . I don’t think he’s really into the whole idea of you bein’ around.”

She jogged to catch up with him as he picked up his pace. “Do you think he’s goinna try and kill me again?” _Better not to chance it._

“I can’t promise that he won’t try if he sees you again. I may have made things worse after you left last night, but Bobby and me won’t let it get that far.”


	5. Second Chances

“So, I can have whatever I want?” Dean was distracted with his own menu, so it seemed like the best time to ask.

“Sure. Go for it.” _Brilliant. Now when I get enough food to keep me going for a few days, I can say he told me I could._ I had to try calling people, but if this was really an alternate universe, none of the numbers I had would work, which meant I had nowhere to go and no way of getting there if I did. I had to start planning for a future with no kind of support network to fall back on. I couldn’t even sofa surf.

“Okay, I know what I want then,” I finally said pushing those thoughts and the menu away as the waitress came to take our order.

Dean ordered the all-day breakfast, an extra side of bacon, pancakes and coffee, and I was quite excited to place my order until I heard the woman gasp. When I looked up at her, she went from staring at me to glaring at a very chagrined Dean. _What?_ She went back to looking at me and was focusing on my neck, so I grabbed my zipper and pulled it up to cover it, while I said, “I know I’m a sight, but I was mugged last night, and this guy saved me. Since they took off with my money, he offered to buy me breakfast. Really, I should be buying his, because he saved my life.”

She then turned to Dean with an appreciative look. “Well, let me get your tab for you then. It’s so nice to see there are still knights in shining armor ready to save a damsel in distress.” I wasn’t a damsel in distress. My Dad would be disappointed to hear someone say that about me. Dean started to protest, and she turned back to me. “Nonsense, I won’t hear of it. What’ll you have dear?” _Damn it. Now I can’t get everything I wanted._

“Uh, can I have a piece of chocolate cake and a glass of milk, please?” I tried to smile, and she must have bought that I meant it, because she smiled back and hurried away with a slight limp. She’d probably been on her feet all night. It made me feel even worse that she was giving up her earnings after working so hard for them.

I turned back to face the table and played with my fork. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tip her what we owe and then some.”

I nodded before I sighed and briefly glanced at Dean. “I wasn’t expecting her to be so self-sacrificing. I’ll find a way to pay you back for all of it some time. Serves me right. Shouldn’t have been planning to fleece you for the world’s biggest breakfast.”

I heard him exhale a laugh before he said, “Why didn’t you use it to get away or call the cops?” _Call the cops on whom? Him?_

“Uh, I didn’t know I’d been kidnapped.”

His eyes narrowed in confusion. “What would you call it? My brother knocked you out. You were tied up and knocked out again. When you woke up, you had to run away after I attacked you, and then I tracked you down and brought you back.”

“Yeah, but on our way here, you told me I shouldn’t stick around. I don’t think that’s something kidnappers say under normal kidnapping situations, but then I’ve never met any kidnappers, so my knowledge of them is limited to what I’ve seen in movies.” I paused to see what he’d say to that, because I’d intentionally sounded as clueless as I could. It looked like he didn’t know what to say again, so I smiled to let him know I was joking before I said, “Despite what I told our waitress, I’m not a victim. I may not have thought Sam was really real, but I chose to say what I said about him. I knew you were real when I woke up, and I still chose to say what I said to you. I chose to come here with you. Those were my choices, and they are directly responsible for me being here. Besides, I’m not in the habit of lying about people to paint them in a negative light . . . you didn’t leave the marks that she saw, so why would I let you take the blame for them?”

Dean leaned forward so nobody else could hear him and said, “So, I only left marks she didn’t see?” _How the hell did he get that from what I said?_

“I’m just saying that you didn’t do anything that you should be in trouble over.”

He seemed unsure but let it go and asked, “How’d you know I was real?” _He has got to think I’m insane._

“Uh, well by that point I’d been knocked out twice and kept waking up in the same place instead of my couch. Plus, my injuries felt real . . . I thought the first time I woke up that maybe I was getting a headache out in the real world, and that’s why my head hurt. When I woke up again, I had the neck pain too . . . either I’m developing meningitis in the real world, or it’s real. I know it sounds more than a little off, but you try waking up and seeing . . . Jack Bauer, up close and personal, and he isn’t Kiefer Sutherland, which would be weird enough, but he is in fact Jack Bauer . . . You do have _24_ here, right?” Dean breathed out a laugh until he saw I was being serious about wanting to know if _24_ was a real show and then he nodded to confirm that it was before looking down at his plate uncomfortably. I doubted Misha Collins was in _24_ in this universe. I bet there wasn't even a Misha Collins in this universe, just Jimmy Novak and Cas . . . unless the Misha Collins in this universe looked totally different. _I should really look that up._

I think I kept leaving him at a loss for words, whether I was being serious or not, because the next thing Dean said was, “So, chocolate cake for breakfast?” _Weird transition._

“Yeah.” I sat back to relax against the seat. “It’s like having chocolate chip pancakes but heavy on the chocolate chips. It’ll do until I can find a way to get my hands on some electronic cigarettes in the States in . . . 2009.” I slumped a little and added, “Maybe I’ll have to settle for nicotine patches or gum.” I think e-cigarettes were still pretty crap in 2009. I’d nearly be better off with the real thing. I was seriously considering bumming a cigarette from the guy sitting over at the counter with a tempting pack sitting next to him.

“What year do you think it is?” _Uhhh._

“I just said 2009.”

Dean licked his bottom lip in thought before he leaned closer again. “What year did you think it was 2 days ago?”

I sighed and looked down while I played with my fork again. “2015.”

Thankfully, that’s when the food arrived, and it looked like conversation time was over for now. After most of my cake was almost gone, I reached across the table to grab a straw for my milk. I hate drinking straight out of glasses in restaurants. It’s gross using something that other people have put their mouths on even if the glasses have been cleaned, and who knows if they’re cleaned all the time the way they’re supposed to be? I’ve seen lipstick on way too many restaurant glasses to think things always go to plan in the dishwashing department. Those are the things I was distracted with when Dean quickly grabbed my hand in a gentle, but firm hold I couldn’t get out of and lifted my sleeve. At the sight of the makeshift bandage, he looked up at me to see if it was okay if he untied it. “Yeah, all right, but if blood starts spraying out everywhere, you should tie it back up.” I probably shouldn’t have let him look, because when it was unwrapped, it also revealed the bruises he left when he stopped my first escape attempt. They weren’t that bad, but he clearly thought they were . . . that or he was taking the blame for the cuts too, which was ridiculous.

He quickly released my arm and looked away in shame. “I’m not someone you should be around. Especially after . . . You know what I’ve done! You should’ve told her that I did this to you, so you could get away from me.”

I didn’t want him to make a big deal out of it, so I shrugged. “Well, the cuts are my own fault, because I screwed up when I climbed back in the window, so you don’t get the credit for those. The rest isn’t that bad, and I get it. You’re a hunter. You didn’t and still don’t know who or what I was with the things I was saying to you about you that you probably didn’t want to think about let alone hear from someone else. Don’t compare protecting yourself from a potential threat last night to what happened in Hell.” I was disappointed that my cake was gone and considered moving onto his bacon. It seemed like he’d lost his appetite and was just waiting for me to finish, because he stopped eating and was moving the food around on his plate now.

“I should have never gone into those woods to find you.” I needed to find a way to say what he needed to hear, but I couldn’t just come right out and say it. I didn’t want to make him have to talk about Hell, which was the real problem here. _Go with saying something that has a double meaning and hope he gets it._

“But you did . . . and you can’t change what’s already been done . . . only what you do going forward. I’ll stick around for as long as you want, because I think you’re going to need my help, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide if you want to take it or not . . . And after the way you reacted to what I said last night, you don’t scare me, because to scare someone, there has to be a reasonable expectation of them doing you harm, and now I know you wouldn’t really do anything to me . . . except buy me cake.”

He glanced at me when I finished and reached into his wallet. His expression changed into a sarcastic one while he pulled out his cash. “It’s like trying to explain things to a child. Finish up your milk, so we can go.” _A child, huh?_ I smiled as I grabbed the straw I had been trying to reach earlier, and he groaned about me not even being able to drink it like an adult. It gave me a chance to explain about the germs that were probably on the glasses, which he thought was ridiculous coming from someone that had slept outside in the mud under a pile of leaves all night.

Dean ate the rest of his breakfast the more we talked about other things, so it took us another 20 minutes to head back to the motel where he said I could take a shower if I wanted. After I’d toweled off and dried my hair the best I could without a hair dryer, I had to put my same old clothes back on. I’d have to fix this clothing situation sooner rather than later, because first impressions and all that, but then it’s probably not a great first impression to call people out on their deepest darkest secrets either.

Leaving the bathroom, I was feeling pretty good about things, but found myself confronted with another intense situation. Not as intense as the two situations from the night before, but still intense. Sam and Bobby were both facing the bathroom, and Dean had his back to me. It was pretty obvious that Dean hadn’t gotten around to telling them that I was there, because as soon as Sam saw me, his entire demeanor changed. He grabbed Dean by the shoulder and pushed his brother behind him in a protective way, and I might’ve thought it was sweet if he hadn’t then pulled his knife and ordered Bobby to get Dean out of there, so he could find out what I wanted and “Take care of it.” _This is going to be harder to get past than I thought._

Dean latched onto Sam to hold him back, while he explained. “I tracked her down this morning. She’s the only one who can answer our questions. We’re gonna need her help.”

Sam relaxed marginally against his brother, but kept his focus on me. “Don’t tell me you’re falling for this. Dean, we need to get rid of her now before . . .”

I didn’t think that I should be there to listen to the rest, so I backpedaled into the bathroom, and Dean shouted for me not to go out the window again. I waited for what felt like ages and was just starting to wonder if maybe I should shimmy out of the window and wait by the car when I heard a door slam followed shortly by a knock on the bathroom door.

“Hey, you can come out now. Sam and Bobby are gonna look for a place we can summon Castiel. They’ll call when they’ve found it.” I looked back at the mirror, and my message was still there. I hadn’t been sure if he’d had time to see it. I opened the door slowly and peeked out before moving to sit on the side of the bed. “You wanna take your hoodie off?” Dean asked while grabbing a first aid kit and taking a seat next to me.

“Not particularly. Why?” He indicated that he wanted to get a better look at my wrists. The cuts had opened up again while I was in the shower, but I’d actually forgotten about them while I was waiting for Sam to leave, so they weren’t on my list of concerns. Maybe it’d make Dean feel better about the night before if I let him take care of them, so I let him.

“What can you tell me about Castiel?” _Uh, a lot, but where to begin?_

“I’ll try,” I answered while I watched him go over a couple of the cuts lightly with an alcohol wipe, “but I’m starting to forget a lot of the details, so I can’t really tell you past what I know of the next year or so. That’s really clear, but everything else is . . . hidden, I guess is the best way to describe it. I’ve noticed it gets worse when I sleep or get knocked out. I kinda hope you can ask Cas about that when you meet him. He likes you . . . or he will.” I glanced at him to see how he processed it. Not much there. Not really a surprise. I went back to watching what he was doing and tried to figure out the best way to put this.

“Let’s start with what he is,” Dean said leading me on the topic and grabbing some butterfly strips to put on the worst cut.

“Okay, you won’t believe me. At least not at first, but Castiel is . . . an . . . angel, but he’s not like the rest of them. Someday he’ll become a part of your family . . . and yes, I do know what that means to you so I’m not saying that lightly.” I looked up at Dean, but his expression was guarded as he focused on wrapping my wrist in guaze. It was obvious that he wasn’t buying it, so I decided to change tactics. “You’re probably thinking that there’s no such thing as an angel, because well . . . you’re hearing it from a woman that says she was in the year 2015 two days ago, and because with as much as you’ve seen, you’ve never seen an angel, and because nothing good ever happens, blah, blah, blah, but if you’re thinking that. Then you’re thinking about angels all wrong.”

He glanced at me briefly, but kept what he was thinking to himself, so I trudged forward with my spiel. “Let me explain it in a way I think you could accept. Angels aren’t the benevolent beings everyone thinks they are. Most of them see us as nothing more than pawns in their cosmic game. Some are even downright malevolent towards us. I mean Lucifer is an angel . . . an archangel, the second most powerful angel to ever exist other than the archangel Michael, who locked him up in the cage, and the reason he was thrown into his cage is because he did everything he could to try and destroy some of the first humans. Look at what he turned Lilith into before he got caught, and it’s not like he’s the only one that hates us.” I paused to let that sink in and watched his hands work. He was good at this, gentle and fast. He was done with that wrist and starting on the other. That one wasn’t as bad. He was just going to wrap it in gauze.

“Something else you should know about angels is –“ He must’ve wanted a break from all the crazy, because he quickly finished wrapping that wrist and asked if I had any more cuts. I told him I was fine, and he smirked before he held up my hole-riddled hoodie that was lying beside us. He was pretty insistent that I at least let him have a look at my back, so I turned away from him, and he looked through the holes in my shirt for a minute before his hands fell away. He exhaled, like he was bothered by it, so I quickly responded, “Just . . . these are my fault too.”

It sounded like he was looking away from me when he said, “Yeah? Why’d you jump out that window?”

I turned back to look at him. “You said if I came out, we could talk about me being stressed. I decided to go out the window instead . . . I’m not big on talking about feelings.”

He breathed out a laugh before he briefly looked at me and said, “You heard that, huh?” _Yeah, barely._ “Not one of my finest moments, but that doesn’t change –“

“How about this? Ruby was the last one to use the bathtub, and I thought that I might catch something off of her . . . the idea of that sent me running?”

He shook his head and looked down at the bed while he said, “Let me guess . . . Demon germs wear off in bathtubs over night. That’s why you could use the shower first thing in the morning . . . You ever had these before?” _Cuts?_

“How bad are they? Can you see my lungs or –“

“What? No . . . you’re gonna need stitches on a couple of these.” _Oh, is that all?_

“Here . . . an icicle fell on me when I was little, and I had to get 2 stitches.” I showed him a tiny scar on my forearm near my elbow.

His expression went flat. “An icicle?” _Icicles are dangerous._

“Yeah, I don’t really remember it, but that’s what Dad said happened.”

He rolled his eyes and said, “I don’t think . . . uh, what I said earlier . . . maybe you should –“

I already knew what he was going to say. “Okay. I only promised to stay for as long as you wanted to keep me around. If you don’t want that . . . I’ll go, and thanks for taking care of my wrists.“

I went to reach for my hoodie on the bed thinking maybe he really didn’t need me around to make him feel guilty about some stupid cuts with everything else he had going on at the moment, but he stopped me by laying a hand over mine and said, “No . . . I –“ before he vetoed what he was going to say and instead checked to make sure I’d be all right if he left me in Illinois.

I responded by sliding my hand out from under his, so I could grab what I’d been reaching for from the pocket of my hoodie. “Here’s your phone back. I may have pocketed it at the diner to call some people. Don’t worry about me.”

He tried to hide his smile, like he didn’t catch that I’d done that but didn’t want me to know he hadn’t, before he nodded towards me and said, “What about your back?”

It wasn’t anything he needed to worry about. “I have a high pain tolerance, so I thought it was fine before you said it wasn’t. I’ll figure something out. I just need to write down what I was going to say about angels and maybe a few other things, and then I’ll get out of your way.”

“So, you’re just gonna write what we need to know and go?” _Yep._ I went to get some motel stationary from the nightstand, and he got up saying that he’d be right back before he went outside. _Hm. What should I start with here? Maybe stick with angels for now . . . Bare facts or a brief explanation of why he should be careful of angels? Maybe just start writing and see what you come up with while you write._ I’d just written, _‘Angels aren’t kind or good or anything you want watching you. They –‘_ when Dean came back.

“Were you planning on telling me that none of these numbers work?” I shook my head and kept writing.

“Doesn’t matter if they don’t . . . Thought I showed you. I’m resourceful. I’ll be fine.”

He sat next to me again and said, “What about the stuff you know? How do you know nobody’s gonna come lookin’ for you?” _They will, but not until after Sam talks to Ruby._

“Oh, I’m sure they will, but they’ll have to find me first. That’s why I should get going.”

He took the pad of stationary away from me and said, “Who else have you been telling this stuff too?” _What?_

“Nobody . . . But Ruby saw me, and the next time Sam sees her, she’s going to want to know who I am. He’s probably going to tell her what I said about Lilith. Ruby is working for Lilith as a double agent. None of the other demons know about it, so they attack Ruby when she’s with Sam and that reinforces to Sam that she’s here to help, when she’s really here to do the opposite of that. It’s her job to help Sam get strong enough to kill Lilith using his powers, so me saying that Lilith shouldn’t be killed kind of interferes with their plans. I should really disappear before he tells Ruby. I just need a few hours head start.”

Dean looked dubious and started to say, “Lilith might be a lot of things, but I don’t see –“

I didn’t really have a way to prove it. “I don’t expect you to believe me. You’ll see it for yourself if you can’t convince Sam not to kill her. I’m just going to write down what –“

He stopped me from grabbing the notepad back from him and said, “I’m not saying I believe you, but let’s say I know demons, and I know they don’t do something for nothing, so I can get behind you saying that Ruby training Sam to use his powers is not a good thing . . . Maybe it’ll turn him into a monster, or maybe it’ll do what you said. Either way it’s not good. What I need you to sell me on is why Lilith would be in on a plot for her own death.” _That’s more open-minded than I thought he’d be._

“I don’t know how to sell you the truth. Lies are easier to believe. All I can say is that Lilith was handmade by Lucifer. That makes him her God, and she is a true believer. She’s going to start breaking seals left, right, and center even though she knows the last one is her death, because getting Lucifer out of his cage is that important to her. She’ll have a moment of doubt once, but she’ll get over it, because at the end of the day, she is his most loyal servant . . . and she hand picked Ruby for this assignment to make sure Sam is up to the job of killing her. I don’t know why she chose Ruby out of all the other demons that are out there, but it was clearly a good choice.”

I didn’t know if what I said would make much of a difference, but maybe it’d make him think twice about killing Lilith instead of dismissing me out of hand. I went to take the notepad back from him again, and he tossed it on the table behind him to keep it out of my reach before he told me to turn around, so he could stitch up my back. “But I should go before –“

He gave me a look and said, “You’re not going anywhere if there’s a chance that you’re right.”

I didn’t want to guilt him into making me stay, so I shook my head. “Me being a vagabond that nobody can find is -“

“Just turn around and let me take care of those cuts while you tell me about your angels.”

I went to say, ‘no,’ again, but he pointed for me to turn the other way while he got some more things from the first aid kit, so I turned and said, “Okay, but I don’t really see the point.” I wasn’t expecting him to then use a pair of scissors from his first aid kit to cut down the back of my shirt.

“Hey! What the hell am I supposed to wear now?” _Oh, my poor shirt!_ I tried to cover myself with what was left of it, and when I looked back at him, he grinned.

“You can’t keep wearing the same thing . . . your shirt is covered in blood. I’ll give you one of mine.” _Yeah, but I liked this shirt. It was comfortable, and it was dark, so if I’d sewn it up where the glass went through and washed it, the stains wouldn’t be noticeable._

“I guess I can try to fix it later,” I muttered with a sigh before I turned to face away from him again.

“So, let me get this straight . . . losing a shirt upsets you more than getting cut up.”

I looked down at my shirt and said, “I told you I already got stitches, so I’ve been there and done that . . . I have the feeling that pretty soon this scar on my forearm is the only thing I’ll have left from my old life . . . Maybe I can turn this shirt into one of those hobo bags . . . What are they called? Bindles? Just need to find the right stick to go with it.”

“Yeah, but you’re staying right?” It looked like I was for now.

“Yeah, but I need some time to adjust . . . right now all I can focus on are the things I know, like I know the force of gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared, or I hope that’s the same here, because if it’s not, then I won’t know anything . . . nothing will make sense, and I need something to make sense right now.”

He leaned closer, so he could start on the stitches and said, “You know about angels, right?” _I guess._

“I know about them because I watched a TV show . . . it’s not like I actually –“

He waited and then asked, “What?” Well, this was awkward.

“I didn’t actually think they were real . . . but . . . you’re real . . . I mean you are, right?” He sat forward, so he could look around me to see if I was being serious. His eyes searched mine for a couple of seconds before he relaxed a little.

“Yeah, you’re just in an alternate universe, and here, I’m real.”

I smiled briefly before saying, “Are you pretending to buy into the crazy to make me feel better, or do you actually believe that?”

He ducked his head and ignored my question by saying, “So, you’re saying that if I’m real, angels are . . . at least here, in this universe?” His eyes flicked back up to mine, and I nodded, so he sat back behind me and got back to giving me stitches. “Tell me about your angels.” _Okay._

“Angels aren’t kind and good or around to sit on your shoulder to protect you from things. They take commands from higher ranks with no questions asked about whether something is right or wrong, and they have no moral compass. It’s run like a military organization with Michael at the top, and most angels don’t care about humans at all. They torture and kill and do what they want to make their own agendas happen. They’re much more powerful than demons. They got you out of Hell, because they want you to fulfill the prophecy about you stopping the Apocalypse, but they want you to do it their way, and I can’t remember what their way is . . . just that it still involves letting Lucifer out, so that Michael can finally kill him, and that fight would be the Apocalypse, so if you did what they want, you wouldn’t be stopping the Apocalypse at all . . . Not that you could call them on their logic fail, because they’re so arrogant that they’d never think they were wrong. It means that you’re going to have to start getting used to the idea of fighting against demons and angels that both want the gladiator fight between Lucifer and Michael . . . There are some sigils that I can’t remember that can be used to weaken them, and there’s another one that can be used to banish them far away from you. The only thing that can kill them that I know of is an angel blade, and angel blades are hard to find, because angels are only making an appearance on Earth for the first time in about 2000 years . . . Castiel is different than most angels. He’ll stop towing the company line the more he gets to know you, but I wouldn’t expect him to do that tonight.”

Dean finished with the stitches without commenting on angels and put a couple of butterfly bandages on a few cuts before he got up and came back with a shirt he handed to me over my shoulder. I went to go change in the bathroom, and when I came back out, he said, “Bobby called. They found a place. We’ve gotta grab a few things on the way there.” _Huh . . . not the way I thought this would go._

“I’m surprised you want me to come along.” I went to grab my hoodie, so I could put it on over the long-sleeved Henley, because it was starting to get cold out there.

"You can’t wear that. There’s blood all over it.”

I examined the hoodie and said, “It’s dry. I won’t get it on your shirt, but if I do, I’ll clean it before I give it back to you.”

He hesitated, and then smiled briefly before saying, “No, it’s not . . . I get blood all over my stuff all the time. It’s just . . . You need to blend in.” _Oh, if that’s all it is._

I put my hoodie on and said, “I need this to cover my neck, and I can explain away the blood if anyone notices, but they won’t, because I’ve spent my whole life blending into the background . . . You should know that I have a tendency not to listen when people tell me to do something. It’s just the way I am, but you like to tell people what to do, and you expect them to do it. I won’t fight you on it. I’ll listen and consider it, and then I’ll do whatever I want. I’m like a . . . free agent.” I soon wished that I hadn’t been such a smart ass. I was having trouble with my damn zipper. He hadn’t noticed yet, because he had his back to me while he reached for his jacket.

“Why wouldn’t I want you to come? You’re the one that told me about him.” _Screw you zipper. Why won’t you just work?_

“Well . . . I didn’t think you’d want me anywhere near where you were summoning something I told you about just in case I was in league with it.”

He turned back to answer me at the door, but I wasn’t watching where I was going and ran into him, which made him snort and say, “You ready to listen now, Free Agent Foley? Wear this. Should cover your neck just fine,” while he shoved his jacket towards me. I sighed, threw my hoodie back on the bed, and put his jacket on.

“I don’t really see how this helps me blend in,” I said with a disappointed shake of my head while I looked down at my hands. You could just about see my fingertips when the sleeves were all the way down. He laughed at me, so I muttered, “I think I need to find a way to start getting my own stuff.” Maybe I could start working on building up my funds now. I looked up at him with a grin. “I’ve never seen Castiel in real life, but I bet you a tenner he’ll be wearing a trench coat. Double or nothing that he shows you the shadow of his wings.” He rolled his eyes and walked out the door saying something about me not having any money, but he agreed to the bet in the end.

An hour later, we pulled up in front of the barn with food and supplies. “So, Sam is here?”

“Yeah,” Dean said while hefting a duffle, “Listen, I had a word with him. He shouldn’t try anything again.” _Shouldn’t?_

“So, I guess you told him that you promised me I’m not dying today? Are all bets off tomorrow?”

Dean glanced at the barn before he stopped to talk to me. “What if I . . .” he paused and then changed his mind on what he was going to say and gave me a brief smile before he said, “Nah, I’d say the day after tomorrow tops.” He got a little serious again after that and added, “But it’s like I said this morning. Whatever happens, I won’t let it get that far, all right?”

I nodded slowly before I deadpanned, “So, I can just expect to lose an arm or a leg, not my head.“

He exhaled a laugh before he started walking towards the barn again. “Your arms and legs should be safe too.”

I jogged to catch up with him and asked, “How about fingers or toes?”

He grinned in response. “Why? You’re not attached to ‘em are ya?”

I brought my hands up to look at them and answered, “Yeah, pretty attached, or they’re attached to me . . . don’t think they’d like being separated from me too much. They’d be pretty useless on their own.”

“Well, then I guess they’re safe too.”

“If it makes him happy he can have my appendix or tonsils or spleen . . . maybe not my spleen. I quite like that, but I’m willing to negotiate.” Dean stopped again with a quick laugh and told me to stop it, or he was going to make me go sit out in the car. “Can’t make me do anything . . . Free Agent, remember?”

He smiled before he took a deep breath and said, “You know what I meant . . . I can’t afford to get this wrong because you’re distracting me,” so I gave him a nod to let him know I’d tone it down, and followed him when he pushed the door open.

“So, what do we have to do?” I asked while our eyes adjusted to the dark.

“Sam, Bobby, and me are gonna be busy gettin’ ready for anything that comes through those doors, and you . . . you’re gonna be over there in that corner puttin’ together what we need for the ritual.” _Right._

"Did you just give me a ‘very important job to do’ that’s actually not that important, so I can feel included? Thought you said no dying today and here you are trying to kill me with boredom.” Dean smiled briefly, but before he could come up with a reply, his smile dropped, and his posture changed as he looked over my head. I flinched slightly when I turned around to see what he was looking at and saw that Sam was right behind me. I hadn’t heard him walk up. One of the downsides of being around hunters, I guess, and I’m pretty sure he still hated me from the look I got. I figured that was my cue to be gone, so I nodded towards Bobby and said, “I’ll just be over there.”

“Hello, Bobby. My name is Elsbeth Foley.” He took my extended hand and sized me up wordlessly from under the brim of his hat. “Dean said that I’m supposed to be getting everything ready for the summoning?” I tried to remain calm and unintimidated by his demeanor.

“It’s over there. Shouldn’t be too difficult for ya,” he finally said while handing me a book and pointing towards a couple of bags. “And I’m only gonna say this to you once. I don’t know if you’re playin’ some kinda game or if you’re sincere, but those boys have been through enough. You do anything to hurt them, and I’ll kill ya myself.” _Point taken._ I didn’t know what to say to that, so I headed away with the book.

The page was already marked. Basically, I just had to get everything out and put it in the order it needed to be added. It didn’t take me very long, so I kept myself occupied by sitting against the wall in a dark corner and flipping through the book. If I’m completely honest, I was also beginning to feel lonely and out of my element now that I was on my own. I was on my own the night before too, but all I could think about then was covering my tracks and how cold I felt. I wondered how my dog was. Did anyone know I was whisked away to some alternate dimension?

I lost track of time sitting there with my thoughts. I may have taken a nap. A couple of hours later, I woke up, and Sam was gone. Either he wasn’t here because of me, or because he had to go hang out with Ruby. It was probably both, and now my window to fuck off before she found out what I’d said was gone.

It looked like Dean and Bobby were ready to start, but I stayed where I was, since I knew Cas wouldn’t show up at first. Why waste the energy? I may have even stayed there when the roof started to flap. I had pretty good seats for the show, and I didn’t necessarily want Bobby to get more spooked than he already was and accidentally shoot me if I stood up.

When Cas showed up, verything happened exactly the way that I remembered it from the show. Well, almost everything. The lights hanging overhead began to shatter, the barred doors flew open, and in sauntered one magnificent Angel of the Lord. He walked through all the warding, didn’t flinch as he was shot, or react when he was stabbed with Ruby’s knife, and just turned like it was nothing to stop Bobby from hitting him with a crowbar before putting him in a deep sleep. It was fantastic. He really was remarkable and powerful and utterly terrifying all at once. I was perfectly happy sitting there on the sidelines, but then he saw me and something flashed across his face that looked like recognition before he took a couple of steps closer and crouched down in front of me.

I saw Dean come up behind him with some kind of a weapon, so I kept my eyes on Cas while I put my hand up to get Dean’s attention. “Dean, it won’t do anything to him. It’s like I told you . . . only an angel blade could, and he’s not here to hurt us. He just wants to talk to you in private. He already tried, but when he did, it blew out all of the windows at the gas station and hurt your ears, so he had to find a vessel. I don’t know why he didn’t try to contact you at the motel unless it’s because you were busy chasing after me all night.“

Cas watched me and said, “He did not tell you that happened at the gas station, but he is not surprised that you know about it.” I wasn’t withholding. It just hadn’t come up yet.

“I just remembered it. Only some humans can hear an angel’s true voice, and you thought he was one of them, but he isn’t.”

Cas looked a little concerned before he said, “You have told him much in a short amount of time. If I know what he is thinking, my brothers and sisters can as well.” I didn’t know where he was going with this, so I didn’t say anything, and Cas said, “You must be more careful.” _So, I keep hearing._

“Yeah, that’s what Dean keeps telling me.” Cas gave me a stern look before he touched his fingers to my forehead. _Damn._


	6. Getting Back To Business

Sam had to get out of there, or he would’ve broken the deal he made with Dean back at the motel. One call and he’d be back in an instant, and that was the plan Dean was supposed to follow before they summoned this Castiel, but he doubted Dean would call. Dean probably thought he’d protect him by handling it himself. Keep him safe by keeping him away. Sam’s anger grew. It was that kind of thinking that had led them here in the first place. He wasn’t a child anymore. Sure Dean had Bobby to back him up, but it wasn’t the same as having him there. Dean had no real idea of what Sam could do now. Scratch that. Dean knew, because that witch back at the barn had ruined everything by telling him, but knowing isn’t seeing, and he guessed that his brother wouldn’t have a true idea of his strength unless he saw it for himself. They hadn’t talked about it much since Dean had come back, because his brother had been preoccupied with whatever that was that looked like Rachel, but he knew they weren’t done discussing it. Not by a long shot, and he wasn’t going to back down this time. Now he was the one with the power, and he’d use it to protect Dean for a change.

Dean had told him that he couldn’t remember his time in Hell, and Sam was glad about that, but his brother was definitely off his game now if he was letting clones hang around, which meant Dean needed Sam to steer him through. Dean probably needed his help with whatever pulled him out of Hell, and Rachel’s clone was back there with Dean too, _“So why am I leaving?”_ he thought slowing the car.

He couldn’t stand to watch his brother being played for a fool. “That’s why,” he answered before regaining his speed. He didn’t understand why his brother wouldn’t get rid of her. She wasn’t Rachel . . . it was obvious that it wasn’t her even though they sounded exactly the same and looked almost the same . . . their eyes were maybe a little different, but other than that they were almost identical, and they definitely didn’t act the same. Elsbeth wasn’t strong or assertive the way Rach had been, and yet here his brother was letting this downgraded version of Rach lead him around the place. But now that he thought about it, Elsbeth was cute and muddy and got hurt and was wearing his brothers jacket, which made her look like a more vulnerable Rach who needed Dean’s help and would take it if he offered it. That made it worse, because that meant everything about her was designed to draw his brother into a trap, and Dean was falling for it. Maybe this was Dean’s way of grieving. Dean hadn’t been the one to see Rachel die or have to bury both of them that day.

Sam did know that Rachel would have never told them to stop going after Lilith. She would have agreed with him that that demon had to go. After everything he had been through in the last 4 months, he finally had his brother back, and he wasn’t about to let some scheming bitch stand in his way of making sure that Lilith never got her hands on Dean again. He couldn’t help but think that this was a ploy. This Elsbeth had to be part of a plan to distract them from the true mission at hand. Why else would she have shown up an hour or so before his brother? He’d watch her for now. Bide his time until he got enough information about her to prove she was lying, and then he would be the one to make sure she was no longer a threat. Dean wouldn’t or couldn’t do it, so it’d be down to him. He had to find Ruby. Maybe they could work this out together.

Pulling up to the address she’d given him, Sam waited a beat before getting out. Was this the right thing to be doing? He wasn’t sure. It didn’t feel right, but when he thought about losing his brother, he knew what he had to do. Walking in the back of the abandoned house, he saw Ruby pacing in the next room. “Where have you been? Now that your brother and his girlfriend are back, you’re going to stop training? You know Lilith will want to get Dean back now more than ever –“. 

“She’s not his girlfriend, Ruby. Her name’s Elsbeth Foley.” Yeah, they looked similar enough that even Ruby was surprised that they weren’t the same person. “I can’t explain it. She knows about all of the things we’ve been doing since Dean’s been gone. Hell, she told him all about it after you left last night.”

An annoyed look crossed Ruby’s face. “Was she following us? What did Dean say? Is he gunning for me now?”

“I don’t know how she knows. Bobby thinks maybe she’s psychic or something, and no, Dean won’t try to kill you. We came to a sort of understanding. I won’t kill Rachel’s doppelganger, and he won’t kill you.”

She blew out her breath in relief and eyed him closely. “Did she say anything else?”

“Yeah, I guess she said some stuff to Dean that set him off too, but he seems over it now. You know she actually said that The Apocalypse is about to start and that if I kill Lilith, I’ll be setting Lucifer free! I mean can you believe that,” he asked turning away.

The blind panic she felt left her momentarily speechless, but Sam was still here with her, so he didn’t believe it. She could work with that, so she responded with a snort, “And Dean believes that? Killing Lilith is the only thing that could stop Lucifer from getting out. I mean I don’t think another demon would be able to do it, so if you kill her, she won’t be able to.” Ruby stopped to watch him before finishing, “You know Sam. You have to get this girl away from you and your brother. Anyone who defends Lilith can only be an enemy. She’s probably trying to find a weakness, so she can manipulate you into saving the demon responsible for your brother being shredded by hellhounds right in front of you. Maybe . . .you should kill her now before she has a chance to make that happen again. Wait until she’s alone, and Dean will think she took off or something.” She watched Sam’s guilt at the memory of his brother’s death hit home. Worked like a charm, every time.

“I already tried, and now Dean’s not letting her out of his sight, so I missed that window. If I did it now in front of him, it’d just confirm to him that I’m a monster. I was thinking that I’d watch her. Prove her wrong, and then he won’t be able to argue against it,” Sam said hanging his head.

“Well, she’s definitely up to something, and it’ll only be a matter of time before you find out what it is. You have to find out what she said to set him off. See if you can use it somehow, and keep me updated on anything you find. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can dig up anything more about her . . . So, I take it this means you’re sticking with the plan for now. Ready for some practice? I’ve got a few lab rats tied up in the living room. We should up the number you can exorcise at once. Won’t be long until you can kill,” Ruby said with an encouraging smile before adding, “But first, I think we should pick up where we left off earlier,” as she wrapped her arms around his neck to give him a sensual kiss. _‘The job definitely comes with perks,’_ she thought as she grabbed his hand and led him up the stairs.

The whole night had nearly passed before Sam made his way back to the barn. He’d been gone longer than he’d anticipated, but Dean hadn't called, so he hoped he hadn’t missed out on too much. Now that he’d been able to talk to someone just as suspicious of Elsbeth as he was, he felt better. It was nice to know his worries wouldn’t be automatically dismissed. He’d also been able to transfer all of his anger and frustration into his gift. He’d managed to save 3 out of the 4 possessed humans back there, and that had to be a good thing. He was definitely getting stronger, and he didn’t think it’d be too long before he’d be able to stop Lilith forever.

Sam got out of Bobby’s car, and Dean said, “We’re already done.” _So, I missed everything._

“I had to go find Ruby and tell her that I’m stopping everything. You’re back now, so there’s no point, right? Took me awhile to find her. So, uh, I take it you met Castiel?” Sam didn’t want to have to lie to Dean, but it would make getting the job done easier. It had practically been their Dad’s mantra growing up, “The job comes first.” Dean would forgive him once he was able to show Dean it was all worth it in the end.


	7. The Long Drive to Sioux Falls

Since Bobby had his own car and Dean thought it was better to keep Sam and Elsbeth separated, she and Bobby rode together. She wasn’t sure what to say, and Bobby wasn’t exactly chatty, so the whole trip had been silent. It was only after they had been driving for about 2 hours that she finally spoke up. “Bobby is it ok if we stop somewhere. I don’t have anything, and I need to pick up some supplies. I might need to borrow some money and pay you back later.” Bobby took out his phone and called Dean to fill him in on what they were doing.

They pulled off at the next exit, and Bobby handed her 20 bucks saying, “Dean said, he owed you this, and he’d pay me back when we catch up to them, so here. Go wild,” before she took it and said thanks. He wasn’t sure why Dean would owe her money after all the trouble she’d caused, but he didn’t know her well enough to ask, and she wasn’t gonna give it up on her own apparently.

He was more than a little surprised that a woman could be in and out in less than 10 minutes, so when she returned and plopped back down in her seat, he said, “Thought that’d take longer. Get what you need?”

She peered into her bag and said, “Uh, yeah, thanks again, Bobby,” before she buckled up. They continued on in silence, as before, until Bobby decided that if she was going to be sticking around for a while, he needed to try and make an effort.

“You got any questions about anything? Seems like everyone keeps asking you questions, and you don’t have none of your own, so if you do speak up.” He knew it was a half-hearted attempt, so he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t do more than give him a shake of the head before turning to stare out the window again.

10 minutes later he was surprised when he heard her say, “Who was Rachel? She wasn’t on the show I watched.”

She was good at masking her emotions for a civilian, so it was hard to get a good read on her, but he didn’t think she meant anything by it, so he answered with a chuckle, “Couldn’t have started with an easier question, huh? Had to go straight for the elephant in the room.”

She sat and listened as he told her that Rachel had been a hunter who was with the boys the last couple of years. She was a good hunter. She had been a natural at anything to do with knives, but not too bad a shot either. Rachel had been smart, but it had been more street smarts that she’d been gifted with than book smarts. Her family had died when she was a teenager, but she was saved by John and had been alone ever since. She’d helped Sam and Dean with finding their Dad and stayed with them after he was gone. She looked like Elsbeth, but Bobby said Rachel’s look was harder than hers, because life had been more difficult for her he supposed. She had a temper and a tough, snarky side. It was hard to get past her tough exterior, but she loved those boys, and they loved her, and she was loyal to a fault. “She died?” Elsbeth asked when he’d finished.

There was a sad, almost haunted look that came over his face before he concluded, “Yeah, she died.” After that the cab became too quiet, so he turned on the radio, and they sat in silence the rest of the way.

Sam and Dean were stopped at a diner half way between Pontiac and Sioux Falls waiting for Bobby to catch up. Dean had filled Sam in about his encounter with Castiel on their way there. Because he’d finally gotten his brother alone, Sam could almost imagine they were just on their way back to Bobby’s after a hunt and that nothing had gone wrong over the last 4 months. Of course now he had to track Lilith down to keep her from taking Dean back to Hell and to make her pay for Dean being taken there in the first place, but it was almost like old times for a short time. “I still can’t get over the fact that you of all people believe that an angel saved you without ruling out every other possible thing it could have been first,” Sam snorted as they walked through the parking lot.

“Yeah. Well, I might’ve put up more of a fight against the idea if I hadn’t gone into it thinking they’re really all just a bunch of dicks,” Dean said before glancing briefly at Elsbeth, who was walking with Bobby towards them. She was still wearing Dean’s jacket wrapped around her. Just the sight of her pissed Sam off again. _‘And just like that, the old times are gone,’_ Sam thought before roughly pulling open the diner door.

They picked a booth in the back, and Dean sat with Sam facing the exits. After ordering from the world’s rudest waiter, Elsbeth said something about the guy being a jerk and left to go wash up, so Dean took the chance to talk to Bobby who was sitting across from him. “So, what’d ya think of her, Bobby?”

Bobby sighed and looked towards the bathrooms before he said, “She don’t say much, but she’s not so bad. I don’t think she’s a threat if that’s what you’re askin’.”

Dean grinned like that worked to his advantage. “I can’t get her to stop talking. All you’ve gotta do is get to know her, and you can do that while you put her up and train her for me.”

Sam watched his brother’s attempt to drag Bobby into this. He wasn’t sure if he was glad his brother wanted to go on the road without her or worried that Bobby was now in danger. There was nothing to this girl. She was odd, and everything about her was fake. Dean had to see that and was just ignoring it, because if Dean didn’t see it, then it meant Dean was slipping, and Sam didn’t want to believe that’s what was going on here yet.

Bobby, on the other hand, took a moment to work through the shock of what Dean had said and exclaimed, “Just because I don’t think she’s gonna slaughter us all in our sleep don’t mean I wanna be babysittin’ her!”

“Come on Bobby, you said it yourself. She’s not so bad, and if she’s gonna be sticking around, we need to make sure she can defend herself. With what Sammy and me have to do, we don’t have time to do it. We’ll stop by now and again to check in on things. She’s smart. Maybe you could teach her how to fix up the cars or find her a part-time job, somethin’ to get her outta your hair for a while. I would feel a lot better knowin’ she was with someone I trust,” Dean finished just as Elsbeth started walking back to the table. 

Sam felt as though he’d definitely missed out on something last night in the barn. Why was his brother so interested in protecting this girl? “What’d I miss?” she questioned before taking off Dean’s jacket to reveal she was wearing one of his brother’s shirts too. She pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail and took her seat next to Bobby. Based on the bruises around her neck and the red marks under her eyes, it looked like he’d been so close to finishing her off before she could become the problem she was becoming.

“Nothin,” Bobby started when it looked like nobody else was going to talk. “Looks like you and me are gonna be bunkin’ together for a while, so I can train you up,” Bobby said looking at Dean.

“Thanks, Bobby. I want to be able to pay my own way. Maybe you could help me find a job or two, so I can do that and save.”

“Well, don’t think that training’s gonna be easy,” Dean said to her. “You might not have a lot of free time on your hands.” Just then, the food arrived, and the bandages on her wrists and the bruises on her neck distracted the waiter when he set her food down in front of her. Dean had thought it was out of character for her to put the ones on her neck out on display, because ever since the waitress yesterday, she’d been vigilant about wanting to keep everything hidden. She definitely shouldn’t have forgotten the bruises were there with his brother sitting across from her. She’d wanted the waiter to see them. The routine she used was different than the one from the day before but was timed to perfection. It got the waiter to feel sorry enough for her that he bought her lunch for her and gave them all their drinks free. Part of her act was even meant to disguise what she was doing in front of Sam.

As soon as the waiter left, Dean had to stop himself from grinning almost proudly at her for picking things up so fast now that he knew more about her from Cas. Grifting and pickpocketing . . . not bad for someone that thought she was a scientist . . . he wondered how she was at hustling. He glanced at Bobby and Sam, and they were still watching her. They weren’t being subtle about it. They were trying to make things as uncomfortable for her as possible. It didn’t matter. He liked her. He wanted her here, and he needed to protect her. She wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t think anything she said or did would make Sam come around to liking her anytime soon, but he bet he could get Bobby on side, and Bobby was the one puttin’ her up, so after a few seconds, Dean said, “You don’t even need a job. You can just con people into giving you stuff . . . and I bet you don’t make us pay this guy a big tip to make up for it either . . . pretty sure you did it to get back at him for bein’ a dick to me and Bobby.“

Bobby watched her for her reaction, because he’d bought her forgettin’ that her injuries were there. He’d thought she’d been forced into a situation where she had to come up with a story to cover for them on the spot and had gotten somethin’ unexpected out of it when the waiter bought her lunch, not that she’d planned the whole thing and pretended she’d forgotten about her neck to cover all her bases with Sam bein’ there. Now that he thought about it though, if he hadn’t known how she got the bruises, then he would have bought the story she’d sold the waiter on too, so it didn’t seem like much of a stretch for her to have planned the whole thing.

He chuckled when she gave Dean a faint smirk and nonchalantly shrugged her shoulders while eating a french fry, essentially confirming to Dean he was right in a coy manner, before she grabbed Dean’s jacket and put it back on to wrap around her. Whatever she’d wanted Dean to know by her putting his coat back on, Dean seemed to understand it and grinned before taking a bite of his cheeseburger. Something about it seemed genuine from both of them. The way they interacted together made Bobby think that the two of them might become good friends some day, and he thought that was something Dean could use after everything he’d been through.

Sam watched as Bobby slowly accepted her as a part of their group and couldn’t believe what was happening. How did her conning the waiter amount to anything other than her being a good liar? It just proved to him that nothing she said could be trusted. How was he the only one not being taken in by her in a group of hunters? It was beyond absurd, and he had to do something to stop all of this nonsense, since now he definitely didn’t want Bobby living with her either. Maybe if he brought up what had pissed his brother off, he could cool things off a bit. “Hey, Elsbeth. What do you know about angels? Dean didn’t have much of a chance to tell me when he was going over everything that happened last night.”

She thought about it for a few moments before she told everyone at the table what she told Dean the day before but left out the parts about why the angels had saved Dean from Hell or how they wanted to use him for the Apocalypse. Those involved the prophecy for him being the righteous man, and she’d told Dean she wouldn’t tell anyone else what she’d told him the other night. “So, what else do you know about these things?” Sam asked maneuvering his plan into action.

“What things, specifically, do you want to know? Cas decided he needed to hide the rest of my memories about that show for my own safety. It’s more like I have feelings about things now.”

She reached for her last French fry, and Sam asked, “How’d you know about angels, then?”

She paused and looked at him, like she thought it should be obvious before she said, “I haven’t forgotten anything I’ve already said to you guys,” and finished her last bite like she didn’t have a care in the world.

“So, maybe you could explain why you want to protect Lilith.” She appraised Sam but didn’t take the bait.

Instead she calmly grabbed her milkshake to bring with her as she sat back in her seat and answered casually, “I don’t want to protect Lilith. Something needs to be done about her, but killing her is the wrong thing to do, and it’s probably why killing her is the last seal to release Lucifer from his cage. It’s meant to trick you into doing the wrong thing by making you think that it’s the right thing. And whether or not you want to hear it . . . that’s the only reason Ruby has been helping you do your thing . . . she’s actually working for Lilith. Why chance it even if you think I’m wrong? Come up with a compromise . . . Something like life in prison without the possibility of parole if we could figure out how to do that.” Who the hell did she think she was? Now she was putting a target on Ruby’s back in front of his brother and Bobby? He wondered briefly if she’d already told Dean that, because Dean hadn’t seemed surprised by it. He noticed that Bobby bought what she’d said, and it made Sam feel more desperate to get rid of her.

If he couldn’t rattle her enough to make her mess up, he could still read Dean without even having to look at him, so the Lilith thing hadn’t been the main catalyst for his brother lashing out at her. Dean hadn’t reacted to his question, or her answer at all. That meant his brother hadn’t been completely honest, and now he wanted to know what’d set Dean off, so he continued his interrogation by asking as innocently as he could, “Yeah, well I’ve finished things with Ruby . . . You make a good point about the rest, and I’ll think about it, but what else did you say to him, because he hasn’t had a chance to fill me in on the rest of that conversation yet. Maybe if I knew more, I could be swayed.” Sam felt his brother squirm uncomfortably beside him and knew he was on the right track.

"You know everything that you are supposed to know about what I said to him.” 

“No, you don’t get to decide-“

“I understand that you’re worried about your brother, but in this instance . . . you’re the one that doesn’t get to decide what you are supposed to know.” That’s when he lost control of the situation. She held all the cards, and it got the better of him.

“So, you can come in from nowhere and spill all of my secrets in front of Dean and Bobby, but then decide Dean’s are his alone? You’re unbelievable!”

He heard his brother say his name, so Sam turned to him and said, “No, Dean, I have a right –”

She didn’t have to raise her voice much for Sam to hear the edge to it. “Sam, you don’t have a right to know. What I said to him was personal. What I said about you wasn’t. He needed to know what you were doing, so he could get you to stop sooner rather than later. I don’t think for one second that’s going to be an easy thing to do given your obsession with Lilith, and if I’m completely honest, I don’t think you’ve finished with the demon blood or Ruby the way you claim. Call it a feeling I have.” She stopped to let that sink in before she added, “Your secret doesn’t just impact on your life. It has global implications. This conversation about what I said to Dean is over. Don’t bring it up to me again, because my response on it will not change.” She didn’t give Sam a chance to respond before getting up and walking up to the waiter to flash him a smile and shake his hand before walking out the door.

The rest of the ride to Bobby’s was quiet, which meant Dean was probably pissed at him too. That had completely backfired. Somehow she had gotten the better of him in there, because he’d had it thrown in his face that he had no control over something pertaining to his brother. He’d allowed himself to play entirely into her hands. And now he had to know what she said to Dean in that motel room, because he needed to make sure it didn’t put his brother in danger. He’d drop it for now, but once they were alone on the road, he’d get Dean to open up about it.

Dean glanced at his sulking brother and wondered if Beth was right about Sam not being done with the demon blood or Ruby. Would it turn Sam into a monster? Is that why his Dad told him he’d have to save Sam or kill him? He’d ask her about it some time, but for now . . . Sam said he wouldn’t use his powers anymore, and he wanted to believe him on something this important, so he’d give his brother the benefit of the doubt. They needed to be more in sync than they’d ever been if Beth was right about these seals and Lucifer.

Dean’s thoughts returned to the diner. It was the first time Dean had seen Beth be forceful on anything, and he knew it was because she was protecting him. It was also the first time he’d heard the faint Irish accent she had when she let her anger get away from her. He found her interesting. What Cas told him about her in the barn had strengthened a need to protect her that he’d already felt, and she’d need the extra help now that she’d been willing to put herself firmly in Sam’s cross hairs to safeguard what happened to him in Hell.

He’d felt for a moment like he had as much control over what she would say to Sam, as he would have had being on a plane that was about to go down. He hadn’t known what she would say, and he wasn’t ready for Sam to know what happened in Hell. The powerlessness over other people finding out what happened had triggered his memories of the helplessness he’d felt on the rack and of the terror and pain he’d endured before the memories merged with the same terror and pain he’d inflicted on others. Every one of those things he’d done to the others once he got off the rack was proof that everything he’d thought about himself before he died was nothing more than an act. Hell had a way of showing you exactly who and what you really were. Hell was always there in the background haunting him and waiting for him to sleep, so he could relive it every night. All of that was there in a flash the second his brother pushed her on what she’d said to him, but before it got to him too much, Beth gave that control back over to him by letting he and Sam both know that the ball was in Dean’s court if Sam wanted to play.

The whole situation had made it clearer to him that he wasn’t the only person who knew about what he’d done in Hell. Not that he’d forgotten that she knew, but she didn’t make a big deal out of it, and she wasn’t harping on about it or asking how he felt . . . and it’s not like it was an unspoken thing between them either. She knew. He knew she knew. That’s it. They could get on with the rest of their day. She may not have seen the specifics of what had happened to him or what he’d done, but she knew enough . . . at least she let him know she knew. He would’ve hated to find out in a month or two or a year that she’d known about it the whole time and kept it a secret.

When they’d had breakfast the day before and he’d told her he wasn’t safe for her to be around, he didn’t know how he knew, but he got that what she’d really been saying was that he couldn’t change what he’d done in Hell. All he could do was move forward and try to do better now that he was out. He couldn’t argue with that, because she hadn’t denied that it happened or said that what he’d done was okay. She just implied he could turn it around now if he wanted. Then she’d dismissed any torture cred he’d built up over the last decade by saying the worst he’d do to her now that he was out was buy her cake. The whole conversation had made it seem like she thought he was nothing more than a lion with a splinter in his paw that she was willing to stick around and help him remove if he’d let her to do it. He knew what he really was, but he also knew what he wanted to be, and it wasn’t that.


	8. The Rising of the Witnesses

When they arrived at the salvage yard, Bobby showed Elsbeth to a room upstairs. He hadn’t realized how filthy and full of junk it was until he pushed open the door. He was embarrassed about it and rushed around trying to move some of the things aside until she said, “Don’t worry about it, Bobby. If I clean it up, it’ll give me something to do. It’ll be a little project to take my mind off of everything, but . . . ” 

“Sheets and blankets are down the hall and cleaning supplies are in a store in town,” he said gruffly.

“No, uh I was just wondering if you could maybe show me how to know which things are important to keep.”

He should have expected it, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t expected the question, and he hadn’t expected the pain to sear through him at the thought of his wife as he looked around the room and saw some of her things scattered around the place. He didn’t need to be reminded of her by seein’ her things everywhere he looked around his house, so he’d stored some them up here. The thought of someone else moving in and shifting his wife’s things around blindsided him. He was fine with hunters stopping by for a day or two, especially those boys downstairs. It made him feel like he wasn’t alone in this fight. Like he had a family that he was a part of despite everything. He hadn’t thought of what keeping Elsbeth here indefinitely would mean to his way of life, and as that realization took hold, he grappled with the fear of that change.

It’s why he turned around and stomped down the stairs shouting, “Don’t touch nothin’! This was a bad idea.” He knew it wasn’t her fault, but he still couldn’t stop himself from marching out the door and over to Dean. “Look, it ain’t gonna work. I’ll go make some calls to see if I can find somebody else.” He turned and walked back to the house, ignoring Sam and Dean bickering over whether or not she should go with them now. The first person he called was Liv. He’d been trying to get ahold of her about the angels for a day now anyway. She wasn’t too far from here, just the next state over. She was a good hunter, and most importantly, she was a woman. Maybe she and Elsbeth could bond over that or somethin’.

After trying Liv a couple more times, he waited before deciding to try other hunters in the area. Just like fishin’. Now all he had to do was wait until one of them took the bait and called him back. 90 minutes and another 5 beers gone, he started to think something was off. Maybe he was still hyped up over what had happened earlier, but it wasn’t like Olivia to not return his calls. He’d known her for a long time. She always checked her messages, and she wasn’t on a hunt that he knew of.

Bobby waited another 30 minutes and decided that he needed to check on her. He stopped to eavesdrop before leaving the kitchen . . . Judging by what Dean and Elsbeth were saying in hushed voices, it seemed like Sam had won the argument on whether or not she would stay with them on the road and had made a store run to get Dean pie to make up for it, which left Dean behind to promise he’d check up on her more than he’d planned on doin’ it if she wasn’t gonna stay with Bobby.

Elsbeth said that she could go with what she was going to do before . . . but whatever that was, Dean was determined she not do it. By the tone in his voice and what he was saying now, it sounded like Dean might put up another fight with Sam about her going with them when Sam got back. Those boys didn’t need that now after everything they’d been through. She sure could cause trouble. The sooner she left the better. Bobby didn’t let them finish their conversation before walking into the room. As soon Bobby walked in, Elsbeth put on what Bobby had decided to call her indifferent mask, so whatever progress he’d made with her was gone. Maybe it was better if she wasn’t gonna be hangin’ around now.

Bobby explained that he needed to go check on Olivia and why, and Dean said they’d go with him when Sam got back. While they spoke, Elsbeth leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and looked like she was trying to work through something she was confused by as she stared at the ground. Whatever it was, she figured it out just as he and Dean finished their conversation. “Bobby, I think you should sit down.”

He wasn’t a damn baby, so he said, “You know somethin’ I should know then tell me,” but still took a seat across from her when he was done with his outburst and prepared himself for the bad news she was probably gonna deliver. Damn psychics. That was another reason not to live with one.

She looked at her tennis shoes for some reason and said, “I think I know what’s going on here, but it’s hard to remember. I think this is a seal . . . one of those locks on Lucifer’s cage.”

Dean nudged her to get her attention and told her if it was starting, then she needed to tell him whatever she could about it. After that Elsbeth took a deep breath before turning her whole body towards Dean in a way that excluded Bobby from the conversation. “I don’t know how much I can tell you. Cas –“

Dean sat forward and said, “Cas said you’d remember stuff when we need it, right? And you don’t have to remember everything . . . just tell me what you can. We can start on something easy.” Elsbeth nodded, and Dean quizzed her on what she knew about seals.

They were relaxed and comfortable around each other despite what they were talkin’ about. Dean didn’t question a single thing she said, and they already seemed to have some sort of code or way of saying somethin’ without sayin’ it on things they didn’t want Bobby to know. Watching she and Dean now, Bobby thought that somehow they were already good friends . . . almost seemed like they could’ve been lifelong friends. It was unusual for anyone who was a hunter to trust someone they didn’t know so soon after meetin’ ‘em, let alone a hunter that had grown up being isolated and trained to be a soldier from the time he was 4. Dean wanted to kill her the first time they met, and that was only a few days ago. Dean was just out of Hell too, which should make him more paranoid about anyone new whether he remembered the place or not.

Bobby’s heart sunk when he finally pieced together that with as much as she knew, Elsbeth probably knew everything that had happened to Dean in Hell and letting Dean know she knew right off the bat would have been enough to spark the reaction she apparently got, but only if Dean remembered what happened to him down there. Bobby had been holdin’ on to the hope that Dean didn’t have those memories, but it was hard to ignore the way Dean couldn’t sleep without waking up every 15 or 20 minutes. Now Bobby knew why she wouldn’t tell Sam what he’d been fishing for back at the diner, because she was right. Somethin’ like that wasn’t hers to share. Bobby wouldn’t let on that he knew Dean remembered Hell, because his boy didn’t need that, and Bobby didn’t need or want to know the specifics, but maybe he could do somethin’ else to help Dean out without havin’ to let him know why. He could do that by suckin’ it up and lettin’ her stay with him if it’s what Dean wanted.

After explaining everything she could about seals, including this one, Bobby asked, “What the hell does any of this have to do with, Liv?”

Elsbeth turned to Bobby and said regretfully, “I’m sorry, Bobby. Your friend is gone. If there are others you can’t get in contact with nearby, then they’re probably gone too. What killed them will be coming for you 3. You can prevent more deaths if you stay here and figure out how to stop it. A spell in one of your books should do the trick.”

“That’s a bunch of bull,” Bobby finally erupted, “You listen to me. IF that’s true, then there’s no way in hell I’m stayin’ in here and hiding out like a coward. I’m goin’ out there to find my friends and save any of them that I can. Where the Hell is Sam?”

He stood up and heard her say, “Bobby, I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but if you’re leaving, then everyone needs to stay within eyesight of someone else until this is done,” as he walked out the door.

“ _Well, this is annoying_ ,” Beth thought as she once again sat in Bobby’s truck. Sam and Dean followed behind them in the Impala, and they made the drive to Bobby’s friend’s house in a little over 3 hours. When they pulled up to the house, she didn’t want to go in because she hadn’t known this woman and told them it would be disrespectful to the woman if she were there, but Dean didn’t want her stay in the truck on her own because of what she’d told them about not separating. It was the same reason he wouldn’t leave her alone at Bobby’s to find the spell they needed the way she’d wanted to do. Dean actually believed her, but Bobby and Sam weren’t going to stay and look for it just because she’d said they should, so he’d been torn between going with them and staying with her. She’d given in on it, because she didn’t want to put him in the middle, and because she felt bad that just by her being there Sam and Bobby were dismissing what Dean thought and said . . . it wasn’t right, and he didn’t need that with everything else he was already dealing with on top of Hell . . . She knew this seal pretty much confirmed for him that what she’d said about the first seal was true . . . and now he would blame himself for anything that happened to other people because he broke in Hell.

Standing in the entryway of the house, it was painfully clear that something had gone horribly wrong in there. Beth didn’t need to see the body to know it was bad. The blood on the walls she could see from where she was standing told her that whatever had happened, hadn’t been pretty. If what she had said to Bobby were true about the victims all being hunters, they wouldn’t have time to burn the fallen hunter now, but they could come back when all this was finished to send her off properly. Dean and Bobby divvied up the names and addresses of a few other hunters in the area that Bobby wanted to check. Beth didn’t say anything when Bobby got back in the truck. There was nothing she could say. Nothing could make up for him having to see one of his friends ripped apart in her own home, a place Olivia should have been safe. Still, Beth didn’t want him to be alone when he went to the next two houses, so she went in with him for those.

At the second victim’s house, Beth examined the body and knew that this was precisely why she hadn’t wanted to go into the first house. It wasn’t because she was shocked or horrified. On the contrary, she could handle it from a scientific standpoint because she had no trouble shutting down the emotional side of things and switching into examination mode. It’s what she fell back on when she thought that sentimentality would prevent her from doing what needed to be done in an experiment. She’d known back at the first house that she would really enjoy trying to figure out the puzzle in front of her if she saw it in person, and that was what felt disrespectful to her if it was a dead friend of Bobby’s. She wasn’t indifferent. She just dealt with everything by focusing on the logic and on what she enjoyed and would deal with the sadness when she was away from it. It would definitely cast more suspicion on her than she was already facing if people knew what she was thinking, so she masked it, which came off as her being cold. Looking cold was still disrespectful, but less disrespectful than if she looked like she was as amused by the crime scene, as she would have been playing a board game.

Like the last house, nothing about this crime scene was clean or sterile. She couldn’t remember the specifics of what was killing these people. All she could remember was that they were being killed by people who’d died because of something supernatural . . . zombies felt off . . . spirits felt like it was the right kind of thing they were dealing with here . . . maybe they were spirits of people hunters couldn’t save? She kept her thoughts to herself. Bobby didn’t want to hear anything she had to say.

Whatever killed this man must’ve been fast, but he’d still had time to run from it, judging by the trail of things that had been knocked down from tables and shelves around the ground floor, either by him as he ran from it or by whatever had killed him as it chased him. It wasn’t like things had been blown over all at once and landed where they did. There was order to the seeming chaos. Something distracted this guy from being able to defend himself, because he should’ve had the time to get to something he could use to protect himself if he had time to run from it haphazardly around the place. This man had been hardened through experience, so it couldn’t have just been that he was taken by surprise by something being in his home. Even under those circumstances, he should have been able to take care of it no matter what it was . . . unless he knew whoever it was that was trying to kill him and chose running over hurting them.

The look on the man's face still held something akin to horror and shock, not acceptance or regret that one would expect if he’d been allowed time to process that he was going to die. There was an enormous hole in the man’s chest as though something had reached in with its hands and torn him apart. Well, either that or an alien had erupted from him, but there were no little bloody footprints running away from the body, so that was unlikely. See, it was thoughts like that she had to keep hidden, because she shouldn’t find things like that funny under the circumstances, but she did as she imagined a baby alien running around the room and even moreso when she imagined it as the singing baby alien from _Spaceballs_. To keep from getting too carried away with those thoughts, her logic had to take back over and refocus her attention, which sent her back into enjoying the puzzle territory. It really was a good thing Bobby had no idea what she was thinking, because she hadn’t cracked once in her frosty exterior around him.

A brief examination of the body showed that the man was missing his heart. Blood and tissue were strewn around the body and blood had dried dripping down the walls. His death had been violent, but fast, so other than the fear of being chased and the momentary pain at time of death, at least he hadn’t suffered. She didn’t say any of that to Bobby either. He didn’t need to hear her conclusions, and they had another house to check even if she had the feeling they would find the same thing waiting for them in the next one.

It was dark before they left the last house. Bobby talked to Dean on the phone hoping he had better news, but he didn’t. He felt his hope fade into grim acceptance. They decided to regroup back at his house. He was closer than they were, so he’d get there first. He didn’t know how to stop this before it got worse, but he knew the only person who might was sitting next to him.

He’d appreciated her not saying anything since leaving the first house. It would’ve been harder if he’d had to mollycoddle her through it all as well as deal with his loss. “You got any idea on what moves we should make with this seal you were talkin’ about?”

“I feel like they’re spirits that Lilith raised . . . and it’s like I said at your place . . . I think it has to do with the mark of the witness. You should crosscheck that with any books you have for signs of the Apocalypse. I think you’ll find a spell to end it,” she said looking out the window before adding, “I really am sorry about your friends. I wish I could have remembered it to let you know before all this happened,” but he didn’t respond to that.

When they arrived back at the yard, he went into his office to see if he could dig out the book he needed. He’d just found it when the lights started flickering. _Well, damn. That ain’t good._ He made his way into the living room with the book just in time to hear the radio go on the fritz and feel an icy cold fill the air. _Spirits? Well if she was right about that, then she was probably right about the rest of it._ Spirits were something he thought the other hunters could’ve handled. If these spirits managed to take down hunters as experienced as the ones he lost today, then they must be supercharged or somethin’. He went over to the fireplace and found 2 iron fire pokers. _One for me and one for the girl. Let’s see how she gets on with this._

“Stay with me, and keep your eyes open. You see something that looks like a person but ain’t quite right, swing at ‘em with this. I got somewhere we can go. We just have to get there first,” he told her handing her the poker. They inched their way towards the cellar door, and he was glad that he didn’t have to tell her to follow him back to back. Maybe she had some idea of how to protect herself.

He felt her step away from him for a moment and turned in time to see her swing the poker like a baseball bat at two little girls he knew very well. He paused just a moment after they disappeared, but it was enough time for Elsbeth to take a step back and run into him. “We should keep going, Bobby. I don’t know how long they’ll be gone, but I don’t think it’ll be for long.” _She might just get the hang of this if she’s confident enough to boss me around like I don’t know what I’m doin’._ Just as he reached the door to the cellar, he paused again, but it wasn’t the girls that stopped him in his tracks, it was the confused, “Mom?” he heard Elsbeth whisper just before they were knocked back together into the door. He heard Elsbeth grunt in pain and was thankful she wasn’t a screamer. He hated that. He couldn’t see what happened next with the way he was pinned against the door, but she must’ve clocked her mother with the bar, because the pressure was gone a moment later, and he managed to get the door open.

The spirits weren’t givin’ ‘em much time to get where they were goin’, because the two little girls tag teamed back in to reappear on either side of them before Bobby and Elsbeth managed to even make it through the door he’d just opened. Elsbeth took a swing at the girl to her left while he got the other one, and they rushed down the steps the rest of the way. He hit the lights, and they’d just made it into his panic room before the little girls came back. “What about Dean and Sam?” Balls, he’d left his phone on the desk in his office.

“I guess we’ll have to wait and hope they get here without too much hassle. In the meantime, we’ll see if we can find what we’re lookin’ for in here,” he answered holding up the book he’d held onto since this all started.

After about an hour of sitting in silence, Bobby finally said, “Damn, I found what you were talkin’ about right here. It looks like you were right about it bein’ a seal and a spell bein’ able to undo it. As luck would have it, I have all of the stuff for the spell here.”

“In the panic room,” she asked distractedly, while getting up.

“No, it’s all around the house. We’ll wait here until Sam and Dean show up and then we can go get it. Shouldn’t be too hard if we work on it together,” he said looking at her again before sighing. “You wanna tell me what that was about up there? You see your Mom?”

“Yeah, just surprised is all. I don’t know what she was doing here,” she said while reading over his shoulder. “What about you? Who were those two little girls,” she asked after she’d had a chance to scan the page.

“Every hunter makes mistakes that can get people killed. My mistake was not bein’ thorough on checkin’ the house those little girls were in,” he sighed before leaning back in his chair. “I saw the werewolf go out the back and followed it out, but it went back in the front after I left. By the time I figured out what had happened and went back, he was ripping out the heart of the second girl after finishin’ with the first. I killed him as soon as I saw him, but it was too late. They’d been hiding in the closet I’d walked past earlier, and I hadn’t known. I always thought that maybe if I’d taken the time to sweep the house properly, I could’ve gotten them out before . . .” he said regret filling every word.

“It must be difficult to put up a fight against someone you feel you are responsible for killing. It might even make you feel like you deserve what’s happening,“ she said after going back to her spot on the floor. “Not that you should think it’s your fault those girls died. It wasn’t, but a part of you knows that and a bigger part doesn’t want to hear it,” she said with a small smile after reading his face.

He chuckled gruffly and said, “Looks like you’ve already got me pegged.”

That’s when they heard the front door open and Dean shout for Bobby. Bobby called out and gave them directions to where he was. They made it down the stairs just as another apparition of a blonde girl appeared behind them. Bobby recognized her immediately as Meg, the girl who’d been possessed by the demon now goin’ around still usin’ her name. He quickly pulled the boys into the room before securing the door, and they admired the fact that Bobby had a panic room while he filled them in on what he’d found about the mark of the witnesses in the book.

When he was done, When he was done, Dean slapped Sam on the shoulder and said, “See, havin’ her around is a good thing,” but Sam didn’t acknowledge the jest other than to ask what they needed to do now that Bobby knew what was going on. Bobby told them that they needed to go back upstairs to find everything for the spell he’d marked, so the three of them headed for the door. Bobby didn’t know they’d picked up a shadow, but they had. “Stay here. You’re safe here, and you’ve already seen what these things can do,” Dean said turning to look back at Elsbeth.

“But wouldn’t it be faster if there was another person to go grab what’s needed?”

“No, we’ve got it covered. This is what we do.” Dean was being firm, but not harsh.

“I don’t have any emotional connection to their deaths, logically it makes sense for me to go.”

Bobby was inclined to agree with Dean on this one, so he cleared his throat to get their attention and weighed in saying, “You did a good job earlier, but I think Dean’s right. I still don’t know why you saw your Mom up there –“

Elsbeth quickly said, “My Mom’s not dead . . . well, she might be. We were never close, so it’s possible, but if she is, I don’t feel like it’s my fault. I was actually thinking that this would give me a free pass to hit her a few more times. Kind of like Whack-A-Mole the terrible Mother.”

She seemed so sincere about it that Dean had to turn away and cover his laugh with a cough, so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea and take it as acceptance of her leaving the safety of the bunker, and Bobby struggled to keep straight face while he said, “Be that as it may . . . I’d feel better if you stayed down here. One of us will come down and get you when we’re done, alright?”

Elsbeth was quiet for a moment and took a step back, but before they left her down there she let them know what she thought about it. “I’ll stay here, since you’re both being irrational about it. You’d probably spend the whole time trying to protect me, and it would take longer to get everything, which is what I want to prevent . . . but I’m not happy about being put in this position.” _Irrational, like we’re a couple of basket cases._ That time Bobby was barely able to stifle the chuckle that escaped him as they turned to leave. A glimpse at Sam helped him put his game face on before they pulled the door open.

Bobby thought it was a bit of overkill for Dean to turn around after they’d closed the door to make sure she was really locked in before he told her not to break out. “I could get out if I wanted, but I won’t. I already told you I’d stay. Go fight the ghosts of Christmases past, Scrooge of the spell ingredients, and stop worrying about me.”

It felt like she’d been down there for hours, but it had probably only been about 20 minutes. The first time she heard the blast of the sawed off, she flinched. It was a lot louder than she’d thought it would be. Every crash, thud, and shout made her breath catch until she heard the next movement letting her know they were okay. _Good thing Bobby lives in the middle of nowhere. There’s no way that he could explain this to the neighbors._ Finally, she heard Bobby shout for Dean and everything went quiet. She waited 5 minutes before shouting up to remind them she was still down there. Before long Dean came bounding down the stairs and said she could come up. Now that the enormity of The Apocalypse had had time to sink in, everyone sat around lost in their own thoughts and bandaging wounds until Bobby said he needed a drink. Dean immediately stood up to grab the tumblers and a bottle of cheap whiskey from Bobby’s cabinet. They all stayed up that night drinking and trying to forget about what was to come.


	9. Starting A New Life

I woke up the next morning on the couch feeling like I needed a shower. Maybe I was still drunk, because I wasn’t feeling any effects from the alcohol. Of course drinking whiskey straight is a completely different experience, because it’s harsh and kind of gross, so if you’re not used to it, you tend to sip it, until you don’t care anymore. I don’t think I got to the not caring stage. I looked at the clock and saw that it wasn’t actually morning. It was more like 1 in the afternoon. Maybe I’d slept right through the hangover.

_Where is everyone?_ It was quiet and getting up to look out the window, I saw that the Impala was gone. I found Bobby in the kitchen making grilled cheese sandwiches. “Afternoon princess. I think that’s the last time you’re gonna be able to sleep in like that with the training schedule Dean left you, so I decided to leave you to it. Want a grilled cheese sandwich?” _Yes, please. They looked amazing._

“I’d love one, Bobby. Thanks. Ummm . . .Where’d Dean and Sam go?” It seemed like it was just Bobby and I now.

“Castiel told Dean about a seal he wanted them to work on stoppin’, so they decided to get back out there . . . Here ya go. Breakfast is up.”

I will say now that the man can make a mean grilled cheese sandwich. Maybe it was the after-booze hunger, not eating much the day before, or stress from everything that had happened, but it was amazing. I washed my plate in the sink when I was done and made sure he knew I appreciated it by washing his plate and the pan too. “Thanks, Bobby. That was one of the best-grilled cheese sandwhiches I’ve had. Do you mind if I take a shower? I don’t want to make a bad first impression with the person you found to take me.”

I leaned back against the counter and waited for him to say it was okay to use his shower. I didn’t want to over-step my bounds. “Well, I was meaning to tell you. I went ahead and put your stuff back up in the spare room. You can stay here and train with me. It’d be better to have someone with your insight close at hand in case somethin’ else pops up. And we’re gettin’ you a tattoo tomorrow.” _Oh. Okay._ It’s not that I wasn’t grateful, but I never really thought this was going to be a thing. Mostly, I thought Bobby would humor Dean and then change his mind at the last second the way he had. I didn’t know how I felt about living in a house with a fictional character that wasn't so fictional. _How long am I going to be here?_

I made my way upstairs to the room Bobby had shown me yesterday and was bowled over by the change. It was still dusty and needed sheets and blankets, but it had been cleared out of everything that had been in it yesterday. He must’ve cleaned it for me some time this morning while I slept like a lump on the couch. I knew it must’ve been hard for him. There was a story there or else he wouldn’t have reacted the way he had. I wondered how long it’d been since he’d had someone actually live with him. Things had changed for me, but they were about to change for him too. I decided then that I’d do everything I could to make having me as a boarder as easy a thing for him to deal with as possible.

After my shower, I went outside to find Bobby and ask him if it was okay if I went into town to buy some cleaning supplies and maybe get a few other things for the room as well. I didn’t know how to ask him to borrow money, but he sensed my awkwardness about the whole thing and spared me by pulling his wallet out. I wasn’t expecting him to give me as much as he did. I looked at the money in his hand and said, “I couldn’t. Thanks Bobby, but –“

“Just take it. You can pay me back when you get a job or by helping me around the yard. Besides, you need to get some proper footware and a few things that you can wear other than the same get up you’ve had on since you’ve been here. Hell I don’t know. Get whatever you need to be ready for training tomorrow.”

I hated taking that much. I didn’t want it, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and he was right. I didn’t have anything, so I hesitantly took the money from him. I had to get a job as soon as possible and learn how to help him around here to make up for it. With that bit of unpleasantness complete, he told me how to get into town and gave me directions to a nearby army surplus place too. I headed off and came back a few hours later fully stocked on clothes, cleaning supplies, a comforter and pillows, and still had money to spare. I made him dinner, because I thought it was the least I could do after everything he’d done for me.

After Bobby cleared the table and I finished my room, he pulled out the notebook Dean had left as an instruction manual for me to follow. It was extensive and precise and I had to start tomorrow morning at 5 am. It included everything from running 5 miles to warm up, to lock picking and everything in between. It even had a stipulation that I had to do the routine for at least a week before I could get a job and that there was no time off for bad weather. In the evenings he wanted me to read up on lore in Bobby’s books. I guess I wouldn’t know how long it would take until I did it all, but it seemed like a lot for someone who was just learning how to defend themselves . . . This was a ‘how to train to be a hunter’ guidebook. “You think I’ll be able to do all of this? I’m getting kind of old to pick it up from nothing, aren’t I?”

Bobby laughed and shook his head. “You’re a lot younger than I was when I got started. I know it looks like a lot, but I can tell you now you’ll need it with the trouble those boys get into. We’ll take it day by day. I’ll teach you everything I know if you’re willing to learn.” How could I turn that down? He’d be giving up a significant portion of his days too if he really intended to help me do all this.

After that Bobby and I settled into a comfortable routine, I’d go for my early morning run and he’d meet me after I was done to begin my lessons. I was best at picking locks and target practice with a handgun and sniper rifle. In fact, I looked forward to those every day. I was the worst at climbing the wall he’d set up in the back. It was more than difficult, but I’ve never been one to quit, so I kept at it. In the evenings after a hearty dinner, he’d hand me a book he selected on some supernatural thing or another, and I’d spend the rest of the night reading up on it. Before bed, he’d quiz me on what I had read, and when I passed, I went to bed. That was my second favorite part of the day. I liked learning and studying, so it suited me. I liked living with Bobby. It was companionable and just . . . nice.

At first, it took me about 18 hours a day to get through everything, including the nighttime lore study. It took me a week to get it down to 16 hours. Neither of us thought I could handle a job at that point, but when I’d been there a month, I had everything down to a neat 11 hours. I think getting used to the routine and understanding how to clean a gun and all of the other little things I didn’t know at first were what brought the time down, but I was also getting faster at that damn wall too.

To find a job, Bobby decided to take me to a friend of a friend who owned a nightclub and knew about the life. His name was Yuri, and yes he was Russian. He’d stumbled onto monsters in Russia and held a high regard for hunters, so he was willing to help Bobby out because of it. After Bobby left, I let Yuri know what my real plans were. I wanted Yuri to know why I’d be there less often than Bobby had indicated to give him an opportunity to pass on hiring me if he wanted, but I hadn’t wanted Bobby to hear it. He and Dean were in some serious denial on where all this training was leading if they thought it was just so I could learn how to defend myself. Of course I’d eventually become a hunter. I had nothing else of real importance to do, so that’s what I told Yuri.

Yuri didn’t think much of me being a hunter, because he thought I was too small, but as luck would have it, I managed to help break up a fight later in the night with some of the skills Bobby had taught me, and Yuri hired me after telling me I’d been clumsy in my attempt. “Of course I was clumsy. I’ve only been doing it for about a month.” He hid a smile and insisted that, Ivan, his head of security who had been in the Russian Army, would teach me how to spar for 3 hours a day before I started my shifts at the bar, and I said fine as long as they helped me with my Russian too. “I took it for fun in college, but I’m rusty and only have a basic level of learning. I loved it then, so if you’re willing, I’d love to pick it back up.” Apparently, that was the best thing I could’ve said. He said I was going to get all the best shifts and could keep all my tips.

I told Bobby about the sparing offer that Yuri had made me, and he seemed relieved. When you think about it, he was training me on top of his normal gig with the phones and fixing cars. He’d never admit it, but our training must’ve been more difficult for him than it was for me. When I told him about my counteroffer for the Russian lessons, he chuckled and said, “Sounds to me like it wasn’t really a counteroffer. More like you just demanded more help from him, but made him think you were doin’ him a favor.” I hadn’t thought of it like that, but he was right, I guess. He was happy that I’d decided to give Russian a proper go, because he was fluent in Japanese and said it was good to have another language to add to the mix.

Throughout all of this, Dean would call every few days to ask Bobby how I was getting on or to ask me about a case they were on to see if I had any ‘feelings’ about it. One of the first times he called, he asked, “Did you know?” as soon as I got on the phone. It sounded almost like he hoped that if I did know whatever this was, I would’ve told him about it. I asked him what he was talking about and he said that his Mom had been a hunter and had made a deal with the yellow-eyed demon, and then he asked me if I knew anything else about it.

“And that’s why he was able to go to Sam that night in the nursery. He needed her permission first and killed your Dad to get her to make the deal. Cas told you where to find Sam with Ruby, and you saw him using his powers, didn’t you?”

He was quiet for a minute before sighing, “Yeah,” and then hung up the phone.

I worried for Dean because this would have to add to the isolation he probably already felt with his PTSD from Hell. He would lose trust in Sam despite his best efforts, because Sam had flat out lied to him about stopping instead of lying by omission the way he had in the show I’d watched. Me telling Dean about it straight away had made things worse instead of making them better, and that sucked. The only good thing I could see coming from this was that now Dean knew what he was up against, and he’d be on the lookout for it. He had to find a way to convince Sam to stop, because Sam using his powers would only lead to Lucifer being released, and who wants that to happen? Well, other than demons and dodgy angels?


	10. Home Invasion

I’d been working at Yuri’s nightclub for about a month when Bobby received a call from Sam asking if I knew anything about a case. Dean had been infected with ghost sickness. That definitely felt familiar, and it was a little weird talking to Sam about it, but I told him everything I could about it. Bobby wanted in on this, and he wasn’t sure how long he’d be gone. He figured it’d take him at least half a day to get there if he floored it, at least another day to finish it, and a day to get back. I told him I’d be fine. I knew this would be a difficult one, because Dean would be out of the hunt, and there were no remains to salt and burn. “Just remember, whatever plan Sam comes up with may seem like a long shot with scaring the ghost to death, but it’ll work. It’ll be close, but Dean’ll be okay when it’s done.” With a grunt and a nod, Bobby left. I think he thought I was useful, but even after all this time it still kind of freaked him out that I knew things like that.

After two uneventful nights in a row, I returned from work to an empty house and thought about how lonely it must have been for Bobby to stay in this house on his own. I didn’t have much time to think about my old life these days, but at night the thoughts of my Dad, my dog, and everyone I’d ever known, always managed to catch up with me. I didn’t like dwelling on those things, but I couldn’t help it. I had a whole other life that I missed. And here I was on my own, left to my thoughts, so I decided to do keep busy by checking Bobby’s messages.

Bobby hadn’t called, but another hunter named Stephen had. He asked if anyone was nearby that could help him on a hunt. He thought it was a werewolf, because hearts were missing, but the lunar cycle wasn’t quite right, and he wanted back up just in case. Bobby had taught me how to man the phones and showed me all the charts he had to tell him where hunters he knew were in case they needed to be re-directed elsewhere. He also told me that sometimes the hunters hit a wall and needed help with research or needed someone to verify their covers while they were investigating. He said I’d be able to tell by what phone they called whether it was a government cover or a reporter or something else and to always answer those calls as if I was a head supervisor, but if they asked for one of his aliases specifically, and he wasn’t around, I’d have to pretend to be his secretary, because I clearly didn’t sound like a man on the phone.

It was a lot of responsibility and now that I was on my own, it made me feel the pressure of doing it right. I quickly went to one of the maps and found where Stephen was before locating the closest hunter in the area and dialing. The name was familiar, but I didn’t know why. A woman answered the phone thinking it was Bobby. “Hello, is this Ellen . . . Ellen Harvelle?”

She was quiet for a minute before saying, “Who’s askin’?”

I expected this, so I said my already prepared speech, “My name is Elsbeth Foley. I’m staying with Bobby Singer. He’s out on a hunt right now, but I got a call from Stephen Riley. Stephen’s in Duluth, and you’re the closest hunter to him. He thinks he’s on a werewolf hunt, but he’s not sure and wants some back up.”

I held my breath until she said, “Alright, tell him to send me his coordinates and we’ll be there within the hour.” That seemed to go well.

I called Stephen back, told him what Ellen said, and gave him her number, before going upstairs to get ready for bed. Pulling on my comfortable Joy Division long sleeve t-shirt and black fitted tracksuit pants, I decided that I wanted to be closer to the phone in case Bobby or Stephen or anyone else called back, so I went downstairs to sleep on the couch. Around three, the phone rang and I answered it. It was Stephen. He sounded winded. “I don’t know what the Hell it is, but it’s not a werewolf.”

I heard a terrible high-pitched keening in the background and Ellen shouting, “Tell her to hurry up . . . Joanna Beth get over here,” and another woman shouting something unintelligible in the background. I knew I didn’t have much time, so I had Stephen fill me in on what he knew about what he was hunting as quickly as he could. He said it made that terrible screeching I kept hearing in the background, took hearts, didn’t follow the lunar cycle, and walked on two legs.

He gave me two seconds to process it and asked, “What do you think it is?”

I don’t know how I knew this, because I hadn’t read it in Bobby’s books, and I didn’t really have the same feeling about it that I had about the witness seal, or even the ghost sickness case, but suddenly I said, “It’s a lamia! You need to mix salt and rosemary together, throw it on it, and then set it on fire.” I just got it out, and the phone went dead. I hoped he just hung up, and I hadn’t gotten them killed.

I went to Bobby’s books to check. I was glad he’d taken the time to show me how he organized everything, because if you looked at it and didn’t know his system, you’d never find what you were looking for in here. I think it was that way by design as much as it was Bobby not caring where something landed. I found the book I was looking for and decided to read up on Lamia in case they called back. I hoped they at least let me know they were alive. It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep though. I didn’t have my alarm downstairs, so I slept straight through until around noon when I felt someone kick my foot.

I woke up to see a woman old enough to be my mom sitting across from me with a hardened look and a rifle and a pretty blonde girl younger than me standing at the foot of the couch holding a handgun on me. Why are they here? Home invasion? … I don’t think so. They both looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure who they were, so I didn’t know what intent they had. I hoped that if they’d wanted to kill me, they would’ve done it by now, so I slowly raised my hands to show I didn’t have anything and sat up, but remained calm, cool and collected.

As I sat up, I heard the younger woman gasp. “She looks just like her, Mom.” Looking at the mother, I saw the blank stare I’d noticed good hunters achieve to not give anything away, but not before a half-second of surprise shone in her eyes.

“I’m only gonna ask you this once. Who are you and what have you done with Bobby Singer?” _Is this going to happen with every hunter I meet? . . . Yeah, I think you're going to have to get used to it._

I told the older woman my name and said that Bobby was out for a few days on a hunt, so she should try his cell if she wanted to talk to him. Apparently, he hadn’t been answering. She wanted to know the specifics about what Bobby was doing. I didn’t tell her where he was, because I didn’t want her to track him down, but I told her who was with him and what they were hunting. That was a problem. I guess she knew Dean had died, but didn’t know he was back. I thought at least one of the three men would have told someone important to them that he was alive by now, but they hadn’t and to these two women, my story proved I was lying about Bobby being out on a hunt.

I went through all the usual tests, silver, holy water, etc. and passed every one, which they weren’t expecting. I think it made them hesitate in killing me long enough that I could suggest they go check out my room. When the girl got back downstairs, she told her mom there was no way of knowing whether or not I’d just killed Bobby to take the room, which I thought was incredibly cynical. That’s when I suggested we just wait for Bobby to get home so he could tell them himself. I think that they decided to do that, because I looked like Rachel and hadn’t failed any of their tests. I still had to be handcuffed while sitting on the couch, and they were only giving Bobby a couple of hours to return before I was gone, but it was better than nothing.

At 3 o’clock, the girl was starting to get trigger-happy. “Come on, Mom. Let’s just finish this, so we can find Bobby and put him to rest.“

The older woman turned to look at her and said, “Jo, we’re not going to waste someone until we’re sure. She could be a human. We’ll give him another hour.” I didn’t think them using their names in front of me was a good sign. Names held all kinds of magical power when in the wrong hands. It felt a little like in the movies when a killer removes their mask and kills the victim because they’ve seen their face. That’s when something clicked for me. _Jo . . . as in Joanna Beth? I bet that makes the older woman Ellen. I helped them, and this is the thanks I get? They're probably going to kill me anyway, and for what?_

I discreetly reached for the bobby pin that was stuck in the back pocket of my tracksuit pants while they argued about my impending death. Bobby had told me to always keep something like this on me in the event something like this happened. I just hadn’t used it, because . . . well, they had guns, and back when I suggested waiting, I had hours. Now I was living hour to hour.

I picked the cuffs behind my back. I didn’t need both of them undone. One would do. Jo was standing nearer, but I figured she was the safer bet to make a move on anyway. Her mom had experience, and that would always make her more of a threat. Jo was looking at her mom and distracted with their argument on the morality of why I did or did not need to die just then, so I used it to my advantage. I stood up in a rush, pushed Jo’s gun hand out and away from me, gripped under the gun and rolled it up towards her, so she had to release it to me. As soon as I got control of it, I hit her in the chest with the butt of the gun to get her to take a step back, and swung the gun around to aim at her mother, while I kicked Jo hard in the stomach.

Jo crashed into one of Bobby’s bookcases and was pretty slow getting up, so while Ellen had me in her sights, she was a little distracted with Jo. _Thanks for the training on those moves, Ivan. I’ll never doubt you again . . . monsters might not usually carry weapons, but people do._ I took a step back and said, “Go check on your daughter, and I’ll go.”

Ellen gave me a subtle nod and backed slowly towards Jo while keeping her gun trained on me. I mirrored her by backing towards the front door. When she knelt down to be closer to Jo, I grabbed the keys to the car I’d borrowed the night before without taking my eyes off of them and opened the door. Before I backed out, I smirked and said, “I’ll see you soon, Ellen. Tell Bobby I said, ‘hi,’ when you see him,” and then quickly made my exit. I knew exactly how it sounded if she thought Bobby was dead, but I thought it was funny, because Bobby wasn’t dead, and he’d explain everything when he got here.

I ran by their truck and shot out one of the tires to make sure they couldn’t follow me, paused a couple of seconds and decided to shoot once into the hood. I didn’t know how long it would take to fix the tire, but it wouldn’t be as long as it would take to repair something in their engine, and I didn’t want them following me or missing out on Bobby coming home, which was really the only thing that would put their minds at ease.

Ellen came barreling through the front door at the sound of my gunshots and opened fire on me. I made a show of throwing Jo’s gun in the bed of their truck and took off at a sprint, keeping what I could between us for cover, as I made my way to my getaway car. As soon as I got to it, I hopped in, started it, kept my head down, and flew out of the lot. I really sucked at making good first impressions. 


	11. Time For A Vacation

The last case had shaken Dean more than he cared to admit. It wasn’t the sheer stupidity of him running away from a fucking spirit or being too scared to hold a gun. It was confronting his fears of Lilith, going back to Hell, and what he’d done while he was there that had gotten to him and was still getting to him now. He knew that if he’d died back there, he would’ve gone back. It’s where he was going to end up now no matter what he did. He might be topside, but every case that involved one of those seals reminded him that the deaths that happened when they broke were on him. He couldn’t make up for that. He didn’t deserve any redemption for what he’d done in Hell, and he wouldn’t get it. The only thing he could do was keep going and try to save as many lives as he could for as long as he could. Maybe make some kind of a difference for other people, but there was no hope for him.

He didn’t want to talk about it with his brother. He knew Sam wanted to help and that Sam knew something was wrong. He just couldn’t tell him yet. He glanced at his sleeping hulk of a brother and thought about his last hallucination with Sam’s eyes going yellow. Maybe it was a lingering effect of the ghost sickness that showed him his fear of his brother becoming something like Azazel . . . That’s what it had to be, but it was after the job was finished. Maybe it was really his own fear of where he thought this was going and had nothing to do with the ghost sickness at all.

He wanted to be able to trust Sam and not wonder if Sam was really going out to meet Ruby every time he left his side. Sam said he wouldn’t use his powers anymore and that he meant it this time, but Sam promised he wouldn’t use his powers before and hadn’t followed through on it. He hated that he wasn’t sure of his brother. He just needed a break from that and all of the constant questioning about what was wrong or what Beth had said to him the first night they met, so that’s why they were heading to Bobby’s. He was looking forward to just helping Beth train and forgetting about everything for a few days.

Pulling in behind Bobby, Dean noticed a truck sitting out front and saw Ellen open the door and walk determinedly up to Bobby. She wanted to know where the hell he’d been and why the hell he hadn’t picked up the damn phone. When Dean got out of the car, she quickly raised her rifle at him and took a step back at the unexpectedness of seeing him again. Bobby quickly put himself between the two before explaining it really was Dean and that he’d been back for about 2 months now. She waited a beat and then reached back and punched Bobby square in the jaw before turning to Dean and saying, “Well, it sure is good to see you alive and well,” before storming back into the house.

When they got inside, Jo was resting on the couch and got up slowly to give Dean a hug as the three men began looking around the place. There were bags of salt and other protections against the windows and doors. Chairs and cupboards had been overturned and propped up to provide shelter from gunfire. There were piles of books stacked around the place that looked as if they were meant to be obstacles for anyone familiar with the place, because they changed the entire landscape of the room. “What the hell did you do to my place,” Bobby shouted after taking it all in.

“Now, Bobby. I wish you’d told me about Dean bein’ back and about havin’ a guest that looks a hell of a lot like Rachel livin’ with you.”

“Beth let you do this?” Dean asked, still looking around at the mess.

“She called us last night and sent us on a hunt over in Duluth. Jo fractured a rib, and when I was takin’ care of her, I got to thinkin’. I’ve known you for a long time, Bobby and there’s no way you’d let someone stay here with you. I tried callin’ your cell, and you never answered, so I decided to check up on you. Found her sleeping on the couch,” Ellen answered defiantly in Bobby’s direction.

“Where is she?” Dean asked with his attention totally on Ellen now. He didn’t like where this was going or how she was talking to Bobby when he was the one that asked the question.

“We ran all the tests, and she passed, but that don’t mean she couldn’t have been somethin’ we didn’t test for. She convinced me to wait for a couple of hours until you got back, so you could explain it to us. We waited and the deadline for you returnin’ came and went . . . ” She paused when Dean stood in front of her to remind her that he’s the one she was answering, and she slumped before finally saying, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You expect me to believe that two hunters lost an untrained –“

Ellen quickly said, “Untrained? She was handcuffed, took Jo’s gun off her, hurt her worse, and then she –“

“Christ, Ellen, you gave her a fucking deadline! How long was she supposed to wait before she did whatever she had to do to get away from you? She was supposed to be safe here!”

Ellen took a deep breath and said, “Before she left she told me she’d be seeing me soon and to tell Bobby she said 'hi' . . . thought she killed Bobby . . . wasn’t the best way she could’ve left it, but I figure she’s coming back . . . That’s why I made sure the place was secure after she shot out one of our tires and put a hole in the radiator.”

“How long ago did she leave?”

Ellen looked at her watch and said, “Maybe 5 hours ago?” _5 hours? She could be anywhere by now._

“You know where she might be, Bobby?”

Bobby checked his own watch and answered, “She probably went to Yuri’s to start her shift. No sense in stormin’ in there now. Might as well stick around and help clean up this mess,” before looking at everyone to let them know he meant everyone and bending down to pick up a stack of books. IF that’s where she went . . . If she decided to do her little vagabond routine, it was gonna be hard to find her. Bobby put the stack of books down on a desk and came over to tell Dean to go outside and fix their truck, so that’s what Dean did. It was the only way he could cool off.

It took the better part of 4 ½ hours for them to get the place to resemble the way Bobby had left it. He was still grumbling and shuffling through his books and papers with Sam trying to make sense of where they were supposed to be when Dean came back in and said that Ellen’s truck was fixed and ready to go. “Look Bobby, I’m sorry about all of this. I’ll make it up to you sometime. I’m glad you’re alright, and just make sure you keep in touch,” Ellen said before walking out the door with Jo.

“Hey, Bobby I’m gonna go find Beth and tell her the coast is clear,” Dean shouted following them out.

Sam shook his head at his brother’s nickname for her and looked at Bobby before broaching a subject he couldn’t with Dean anymore. “You know Ellen and Jo did the right thing here, right? They were just lookin’ out for you. They were right not to trust everything Elsbeth told them.”

Bobby was looking at the book in his hand and said, “I know I should’ve told them about Dean being back, but I didn’t think about Elsbeth being something they should know,” before he sighed and glanced at Sam to add, “Sam, you haven’t been around her for a while now, but I’ve been with her nearly every day. Elsbeth really is just a good kid. Dean’s got a good instinct about these sorts of things, and she’s a big help in this fight with what she knows. I think maybe you should start getting’ used to the idea of her bein’ around for a while.” Sam reached for another book and let it go for now. He’d just have to find out a way to get rid of her without Bobby’s help.

Dean walked through the front of Yuri’s and straight up to Beth at the bar. The place was dead. She paused in drying the glass in her hands when he got to her but didn’t look at him. “So, did you swing by Bobby’s first?” He wondered what kind of a spin she’d put on it if he said no.

“Yeah, we explained everything, and they left. I take it you were messing with Ellen when you told her to tell Bobby you said hi?” Beth smiled and put the glass down, so he said, “They trashed the place turnin’ it into a bunker in case you came back to finish ‘em off. Shooting out their radiator, so they had to stick around until Bobby got back was a nice touch.”

She bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “I think you’re giving me a little too much credit on that one. I didn’t care what I hit in the engine. I just wanted them to be there long enough to see that I hadn’t stuffed Bobby under the floorboards . . . Is Jo okay? I think I might’ve hurt her, but I couldn’t stay there anymore. There’s only so many times you can hear one more hour until there are no more hours . . . they were arguing about it. Ellen wanted to wait another hour, and Jo was getting tired of waiting.” So, they’d been pretty serious about it, or Jo had been. What the hell were they going to do? Execute her because Bobby didn’t answer his damn cell phone?

“I wouldn’t worry about Jo. She was up and moving around fine when they left . . . I can wait around for you until you’re done if you want.”

She nodded and said, “Yeah, I’m finished. I was just waiting to see if I’d have to stay the night,” before she shouted something to someone in the back. “You know Russian?”

“I’m not fluent or anything. I took it in college, but Yuri’s been helping me brush up on it.” It was still kinda hot. She grabbed her jacket from behind the bar, and Dean asked if she had to work the next day. She said she worked every day, so he told her to take the next couple of days off. He wanted to train with her and wasn’t sure when he’d have another chance to stop by Bobby’s. She disappeared into the back and came back saying everything was set a few minutes later. When they got to their cars, Dean asked her if she wanted to go do something. He wasn’t ready to go back yet.

“I don’t know, Dean, I have to start training at 5 tomorrow. It’s kinda late.” Late? It wasn’t late. It was only like 1.

“What if I move it back to 9? It’s one of the benefits of hanging out with the teacher,” he answered cockily.

“Don’t teachers get fired for fraternizing with students?” Seriously? It’s not like - She smiled, and he got that she was messing with him. He forgot that she did that. She could play crazy and dumb better than almost anyone he knew, and she always smiled when it put him off his game.

“Nah, not when I’m in charge.” She smiled again and asked him what the plan was as he opened his door. “Do you like pie? Cuz I know a place that makes great pie near here, and its open 24 hours.”


	12. There's No Place Like Home

_Ugh._ I smacked my alarm to shut it up again. It’d already gone off once, and now it was 8:30. I needed to get up and start stretching before my run, but we hadn’t gotten in until after 5. Time just got away from us. The only awkward part had been when I asked Dean if Cas had said anything about why I was here. I’d wanted to ask him about it before, but I didn’t want to ask him over the phone, and this was the first time I’d seen him in 2 months.

He might’ve started shoveling more pie into his mouth instead of answering me. Was it something he just found out, or was it something he’d known since the barn? Either way, his reaction made it seem like it was something bad. There’s only so long you can fill your mouth with food to keep from having to say something before it seems weird, so eventually, he said, that I was here because of what I knew about what was going to happen with he and his brother for the next few years.

“Yeah, but why me? There are millions of other people out there that could’ve done this.” He bowed his head, shrugged, and started using his fork to play with what was left of the pie on his plate. I’m guessing that meant that he knew, but he didn’t want to tell me. “So, the next few years . . . is that how long I’m staying, or is there like a cut off, and then once I tell you the last of it, I’ll go home, or . . . what?” _Uh oh._ He put his fork down and looked out the diner window. _That can’t be good._ He glanced at me and opened his mouth to say something, but then just settled for shaking his head.

I started to ask another question, and he said, “Think maybe you should get used to calling here, home. You’re not going back.” I glanced away for a few seconds. _Fake a smile, and let him know you’re okay, so he’ll stop watching you to make sure you are._

“Yeah, I already guessed that. You’re terrible under pressure.” He exhaled a laugh, and went back to eating his pie. “Do you have any idea how I’m supposed to help you know what’s coming in the future if I don’t remember anything? Why would Cas hide those memories from me?”

“Uh, it’s not you. It’s Sam and me. Cas was pretty pissed when he found out what you told me, and the only way he found out what you said was from me, so he –“ _Wait. What?_

“He didn’t get anything from me?” Why did Dean suddenly look like a deer in headlights? “So, he can’t read my mind? Is that –“

“He doesn’t think it’s safe for you to know all this stuff if me and Sam are getting face time with angels and demons. It’ll lead them back to you.” No, that’s not what he’d meant.

“Is it because I’m from an alternate universe?”

Dean grinned, and it looked like he was going to say something, but then his smile slowly fell, and he hung his head. “I can’t tell you everything Cas said. I mean I could make stuff up, but I’m –“ He threw his napkin on his plate and said, “Trying something new. It’s called being honest. I don’t want to lie to you.” _Uh, okay._

“Isn’t lying by omission a lie?”

He slumped a little and said, “It’s just . . . you haven’t lied to me, right?” _Uh._

“I don’t know. I don’t think I have . . . oh, yeah. No, that wasn’t a lie, I said I called people and would be fine. I didn’t tell you nobody answered . . . I don’t count that as a lie, because everything I said was true, and I didn't think it was a big deal at the time, because it's pretty much what I was expecting. I’m going to say no. I haven’t.”

He sat back and watched me for a few seconds. “I was talking more about the big stuff, but okay . . . Right out of the gate, you told me what was what, and I may not have liked it, but it was true . . . I’m not ready to tell you everything Cas told me about you, but I don’t want to lie to you either. Most of its stuff I’m trying to work out, and I’ll tell you when I do . . . And just because Cas hid stuff from you, doesn’t mean that the memories aren’t there, or I wouldn’t be sitting here right now, right?” _Is he talking about him being cured of ghost sickness?_

“You always would’ve survived having ghost sickness, whether I was here or not. Sam and Bobby would’ve figured it out by themselves. All I did was explain what was happening and cheer the team on from a different state.” Dean ducked his head again. “What was it like?” He glanced at me, so I said, “I don’t mean what did you see? I mean what was it like feeling fear like that?”

Dean shrugged and said, “You’ve never been scared?” It isn't the same.

“Is it like the complete opposite of nitrous oxide? I mean that makes you laugh, and it reduces pain and can help with alcohol withdrawal, so the opposite would make you drink more and maybe increase pain, right?”

He relaxed when he realized that I was asking more about the physical side effects and then grinned. “You wanna run experiments on me?” _Really?_

“Can I?”

He laughed and said, “No,” before he got a refill on his coffee. When the waitress left, he said, “You never answered my question.” _What question?_

“You’ve never been scared?” _Oh._

“Yeah, I’m scared all the time. I’m scared right now.”

His eyes narrowed while he tried to see how serious I was being. “Of what?” _Do I need a reason?_

“I have no idea. It’s just general anxiety.”

He sat forward and rested his elbows on the table. “You look fine to me.” _Yeah, well . . ._

“Does looking fine count as me lying to you?”

Dean hesitated before shaking his head. “You wanna talk about it?” _Do I want to talk about what?_ He rolled his eyes at my confusion and said, “You know what I meant.” Yeah, I did.

“It’s not because I’m not going home. I mean, yeah, I’m living in TV land now, but I don’t know what that really means, because I can’t remember the show, and I don’t know how I feel about it. I have no idea what to think if I’m never going to talk to my Dad again. He needs me, and he’s all I’ve ever really had . . . Is he going to take care of my dog, or is my prick of a landlord going to put my dog in the pound? I’m always going to be one day shy of having a PhD. I did all the hard parts. Even passed my viva. I should’ve submitted the final draft of my thesis the night before I came here, but I didn’t, so I’m not a doctor. If I feel any one of a number of emotions about any of those things, all it’s going to do is eat me up inside, so I guess I have to let it go, and I’m trying to do that. But none of that is why I feel general anxiety all the time, because I felt like that all the time when I was there. Apparently, it travels with me from universe to universe, so that’ll keep my icicle scar company when everything else I have is gone.”

_Ugh, and there’s that damn alarm again. I guess I should get up._ I brushed my teeth, made my way back to my room, and did my stretches in half the time it normally took. I was just lacing up my boots when there was a knock at the door. “You about ready to get started?”

I pulled the door open and said, “Yeah, I was just gonna go for my run. Bobby usually waits for me to finish before we get started.” _Maybe I should have gotten ready earlier if he actually meant for us to start training at 9. Ooh, or maybe I don’t have to run today._

“I was thinking I’d go with you. Get a feel for your day.” _Bollocks. No slacking._ He started heading for the stairs, so I followed him down.

“I thought you didn’t run unless something was chasing you.”

I smiled when he headed out the door saying, “I don’t.”

_For a guy who doesn’t run, he’s in a lot better shape than he should be._ I hadn’t run in years before I started doing this little training course, and I’d struggled the first week. He was probably pacing himself so I could keep up with him even though I was fit and could run it with no problems now. When we were done and catching our breath, I asked him how far he usually had to run away from things. Seemed like a reasonable question. “Oh, that? That was nothing. I’m just naturally talented, Beth. Come on. What’s next?”

Next, it was the first 50 push-ups of the day and then on to disassembling, reassembling, and cleaning 5 guns for time. He beat me by 10-minutes and wasn’t even trying. When he was done, he kept rushing me to go faster. It kind of worked, because it was my best time by 2 minutes. Then we did 50 more push-ups before practicing with the sniper rifle, shotgun, and handgun. When we were done, he asked me how I was at hitting a moving target. I had no idea, so he found some old bottles, threw one in the air, and hit it as it fell back to Earth. Then he handed the handgun off to me. This was going to suck. I missed the first 3, but then I got 6 in a row without missing one. I missed the 10th, and he said that was something we’d have to work on in the future. It was something new, which meant I was looking forward to it, but not until he and Sam left again. Doing it in front of someone as good as him, who was watching my every little move, was a little unnerving.

Then we did 50 more push-ups and it was time to throw knives and use the crossbow. I really didn’t want to do the knife-throwing thing. No matter how hard Bobby tried, I just couldn’t do it. They either sailed right over the target or bounced off the target handle first. More than one got stuck in the ground between the target and me, and it wasn’t because they bounced off anything and landed there. They just flew out of my hand and straight into the ground.

“Stop laughing . . . I thought you’d get mad at me.”

Dean tried to keep a straight face while he said, “If you were half-way good at this, then I might, but you’re so bad . . . I mean how can I . . . it’d be like kicking a dog with no legs . . . Try it again.” _Fine._

“Oh for fuck’s sake . . . Feckin’ stupid, whore of a knife.” He lost it, and I mostly had to stand around waiting for him to calm down enough to laugh out that we were done with that and could finally go onto the crossbow. I was pretty good at the crossbow. He wanted me to try it with a moving target, so he ran in and asked if Bobby had anything we could use. Bobby found some old beanbags for a broken beanbag gun, and we used those. I hit 80% of the tosses, so I was getting better at anticipating where a moving target would be.

Then it was more push-ups and machete drills and breaking into cars before breaking into and getting past a number of different types of security systems and locks that Bobby had set up for me in one of his sheds, like a mini-obstacle course. Dean seemed impressed with it. We ran through it once together, and I finished at the same time as him. He wanted to do it again, so we did, and I beat him that time. “Best two out of three?” _You’ve got it._ I beat him that time too. “How many times have you done this set up?” _Not as many as you’re thinking._

"Bobby usually goes and finds different types of locks and systems when I go to work, so it’s new every morning. He hasn’t been around to do that for the last 3 days, so I guess 3 days, but I didn’t do it yesterday.”

He had a look back through the course and said, “I’ll come up with something new for tomorrow . . . might add a safe at the end too . . . what do you think?” Yeah, that sounded like fun.

Next, it was time to climb the wall on one of Bobby’s sheds. I hated that wall. I didn’t mind running across the roof or dropping down the other side or even scaling the chain length fence beyond that before turning around and doing the same on the way back to where I started, but getting up the wall both sides was a disaster, and I had to run the course 3x in a row. Dean said it wasn’t so bad. All you had to do was image that some monster was chasing you and that it was climb the wall or be shredded. Then he took a step back and launched himself forward, scaling up it in no time. He didn’t even need to use the rope.

_Show off._ I did better than I normally do. It’s not because I was pretending there was a monster chasing me. It’s just hard not to do your best when the person you’re training with is doing it with you. I loved training with Bobby, and I would never expect him to climb the wall, but having to keep up with someone else helped. I’m pretty competitive. I finished the rest of the wall-obstacle course with no real problems except on the last one when I started to get tired.

“Bobby said he wanted her to take a break.” Sam called out as he approached with our lunch. He insisted that one of them was specifically for me. I wondered if he spit in it. The three of us sat there in silence, stretching out in the afternoon sun. It was almost too cold when you weren’t moving around and jumping over things. Sam pulled me from my thoughts by saying, “So, Bobby said your next thing was sparring and then research for 3 hours.” I looked down at my sandwich and nodded. _Bobby must’ve told Sam to make sure I got this sandwich, because it has extra mayo in the BLT, and it’s on Rye toast._ I still wasn’t sure about the spit thing, but I’d checked it thoroughly and was pretty sure that it was okay. _Bobby must’ve noticed how I was doing on the wall and decided to give me a reward._ Dean kicked my foot to get my attention. _What? Am I supposed to elaborate?_

"Uh, yeah, I guess. I’ve been sparring with Ivan, so we had moved the research up to after lunch, but I suppose we could go back to the way it used to be with you guys here now.” _Don’t know why I had to say all that. A simple, nod covered all of it._

“You know, if you want, I could help out with the research. Find you a book and grill you on it,” Sam responded.

He looked like he wasn’t going to leave until I agreed to it, so I said, “Yeah, that’d be good. Thanks, Sam,” and he got up to go back in the house.

“See . . . that’s why I just nodded.”

Dean must’ve heard me even though I’d muttered it under my breath, because he said, “Come on . . . he’s trying.” _That’s what he wants you to think._

“Is he? Because I think he’s going to try and find a way to screw me over somehow.”

Dean watched Sam walk away and said, “How’s he supposed to get to know you if you won’t talk to him? You’re like a completely different person when he’s around.” _That’s intentional, because I don’t want him to remember that I exist unless absolutely necessary. Anyone who is strangled enough to get severe petechial hemorrhaging on their face isn’t likely to want to hang out with their attacker if they survive. You might buy me cake, but Sam would not. I'll do it for you though._

“All right . . . I’ll try.” I finished off what was left of my sandwich and got to my feet.

“How long do you normally spar?”

I helped Dean up and answered, “3 hours.” He groaned, and I laughed. “The best part is that we get to do it all again tomorrow . . . but you shouldn’t have any problems, since you’re naturally talented and all.”

I was actually in a pretty good mood when we went back in the house. I wasn’t really a match for Dean when it came to sparring, but it’d been fun, and what Ivan was teaching me was a little different than the techniques Dean knew, so I think it made it a little fun for him too. He seemed like he was having a good time anyway. When we walked in the living room, Sam was pouring over a book and got up to hand it to me. “3 hours.” It wasn’t that thick, and that’s because it was specialized to one being.

"Lilith? Seriously?” Dean asked glancing over my head at his brother.

“Ruby found it after you died. She thought we could use it to find a way to track and kill Lilith,” Sam said before looking at me and adding, “See if you can find anything on her being the final seal,” before he walked into the other room.


	13. Truth Serum

3 hours later, it was time for my exam. Sam sat across from me at the table and Bobby was giving us dinner. “Thanks for this, Bobby, and thanks for lunch earlier.” Maybe dinner wasn’t the best time for this. He’d spent some time making this stew.

“I’m used to spending time with you,” he said glancing at Sam, “so I know you start to get cranky when you get hungry. Just thought it was safer for Dean if you ate before sparrin’. And don’t mention the dinner, we needed to eat, and I needed something to do to fill my time. Not used to havin’ much free time these days.”

“You ready to get started,” Sam asked right out of the gate.

“Sure, but you should know you only get 10 questions, and you already asked me one. The answer to that question is, no. There’s nothing in that book that says that Lilith is the final seal.” He asked me a series of questions that oddly weren’t that difficult about her powers and things like that. Question 6 was where she came from, which was again an easy question. “According to the lore, she was Adam’s original wife, but she wasn’t subservient enough, so Eve got the job instead. She’s the first demon created by Lucifer. It’s why she has to be the last seal to break him out,” I said rather smoothly while I grabbed another roll. Then he wanted to know her title. “She’s Queen of the Crossroads. A demon named Crowley is her second in command.” Sam sat up at my response. _Why is he acting like that? Crowley wasn’t in the book. I really shouldn’t have even mentioned him . . . makes me sound like a know-it-all._

Sam asked me why Crowley was important to Lilith. “Do you really want to waste one of your questions on something that’s not in the book?”

He arched one of his eyebrows and said, “Are you sure it isn’t?” I knew he was playing at something but I didn’t know what it was. Maybe I should humor him, so I could figure it out.

He asked me the question again, and I said, “Crowley is King of the Crossroads, and he’s not even close to being as powerful as Lilith, but he’s smart, so he makes up for it by scheming. He’s the one who has the Colt, not Lilith.” _Should’ve stopped at Crowley is the King of the Crossroads, but I couldn’t. What the hell just happened?_

“So, this Crowley has the one thing we needed to keep Dean out of Hell?” _Uhh._ “What interest would Crowley have in Dean or the Colt?” _What?_ “I don’t –“

Sam cut me off by saying, “Try starting it with Crowley or Dean, and I bet you’ll come up with something.“ Had Sam noticed that I actually had no control over what I said when I started rattling off answers about the future? He looked so smug. _I said I’d be nice . . . try to be nice. If you can’t be nice, leave until you can be._ I stood up and was on my way anywhere other than that kitchen, so I could take a breather, but on my way out, I stopped by Sam and . . . nope, I got nothin’. I carried on my way to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, and tried to compose myself in the mirror. _What if he asks me a question in such a way that I tell him what happened to Dean in Hell? What if that’s where that last question had been going?_

I’d only eaten half my food, and Bobby had worked hard on it, but I decided I was done for now and would heat it up later. I went back downstairs and out the front door to get some fresh air on the porch steps. A few minutes later, I heard the door close and Dean say, “Hey, you wanna tell me what was going on in there?” _Not really._

“Uh, I think Sam figured out how to unlock what Cas did to hide what I know about the future. It’s so stupidly obvious now that I think about it. How do you get an answer when you need it? Ask the right question. I mean, that’s what you do . . . call me before every case, and . . . is that why -“

Dean sat down next to me, and I wouldn’t look at him, so he nudged me with his shoulder and said, “I swear Cas didn’t tell me about whatever you’re talkin’ about . . . Think he thinks that the less I know the better . . . Why is this a problem?”

“The problem is that once I start answering a question about that TV show, I have absolutely no control over what comes out of my mouth. It turns me into a big, dumb, walking doll of important information. All you have to do is pull the fucking string, and I’ll spill whatever you want . . . And I didn’t know that until now.” Willingly giving information was totally different than being compelled to give it. “I didn’t notice it until now, because usually, I want to tell you everything I can to help, so it’s not a problem, but all I meant to say about Crowley is that he’s the King of the Crossroads, and I couldn’t stop at that. It’s like I’d been given some kind of a truth serum that took it out of my control.”

I wondered how much of a liability he must’ve thought I was, because I felt like one. “Maybe it’s something you can change after you’ve said it once. Like when you told Sam about the angels . . . you didn’t him why they pulled me out of the pit.”

I laid my head on his shoulder and said, “I may not know what I’m going to say before I say it the first time, but I’ll remember what I’ve said after that, so then I can control it?” He nodded, so I said, “What about the first time around when I can’t control it? What if someone who shouldn’t know what I know gets a hold of me, asks me questions, and I can’t control what I tell them?”

He shook his head and said,“That’s not gonna happen.” I sighed.

“You don’t know that. I don’t know that. I know nothing about my own future.”

He was quiet for about ten seconds before he said, “Guess you don’t, but I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.” I didn’t need protection. I needed to not have my memories taken from me. Who gave Cas the right to do that? It wasn’t me. When I didn’t say anything, Dean said, “If Cas hadn’t done what he did maybe it still would’ve turned out this way. I mean you were forgetting things then, right?” _Yes and no._

“Everything beyond the next year, but that could've been the concussions.” He thought about it and tried again.

“But everything you could remember then is still there . . . now you just sound like a psychic . . . it’s like he put you deep undercover, and that ain't a bad thing . . . And I don’t see him undoing it so it’s what we have to work with . . . we can figure it out together. Try a few things and see what happens.” _Okay._ “I get the feeling you know more about what’s goin’ on with Lilith and The Apocalypse, so we’ll leave those questions for now. What if I ask you about something I know Bobby hasn’t had you read up on yet, like . . . What do you know about djinn?“ I guess he’d really been keeping tabs on what I was learning.

“They have this trippy poison that makes you think your wish is coming true while they drain your blood, and you slowly die. They can be killed with a silver knife dipped in lamb’s blood.”

“That’s it? Just the facts? Nothing about me or Sam ever running into one?” Well, that’s all I’d been forced to say about djinn.

“I feel like maybe you guys have come across djinn a few times. I feel like one time in the past you, specifically, had a hard time with one, but I can’t remember the details, and I feel like it’ll happened to you again a couple of years from now . . . maybe there will be a group of them, and then I think that you guys are supposed to come across some kind of a mutated djinn or a hybrid or some kind of close relative to djinn after that . . . I can’t remember the details of those either.” I waited for him to answer and looked up at him when he didn’t.

He glanced down at me and said, “I ran into a djinn a couple of years ago. Clawing my way out of that dream was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made. It wasn’t a choice when I sold my soul to bring Sam back. It was what I had to do. But choosing to come back to this shitty life instead of staying where my Mom was still alive and Sam and I had normal lives? It was . . . not something I wanted to give up.” No, I guess that was the point of the poison.

“How’d you do it?”

Dean ducked his head and said, “You tell me . . . How do you think I did it?” I knew that I should know, but I didn’t, which was frustrating. “How about this? How did I wake myself up from that djinn’s dream?”

“You had to kill yourself in the dream to wake up.”

He smiled briefly and said, “That’s right . . . How’d I know the dream wasn’t real?” _Uh._

“You saw a news article about a plane crash, and you knew those people shouldn’t have died . . . same goes for other people you saved . . . and there was a woman you kept seeing . . . She didn’t fit. I think she might’ve been with you in the real world?”

He smiled again and said, “Not bad . . . So, it’s all still there. It’s just hard to find.” _Yeah._

“But I think I should know more . . . there are a lot of blanks.”

He shrugged and said, “You know the important parts . . . guess that’s all you need.” Yeah, but it felt like an incomplete story.

“What if I ask you about a monster I haven’t hunted yet, like dragons? What do you know about them?” _Dragons?_

“Dragons don’t look like giant flying dinosaurs unless they want to look like that. They generally look like humans, but they still like virgins and gold and make things super hot with their touch. You have to kill them with a sword forged in dragon’s blood.”

Dean snorted. “Looks like I’ll be fighting dragons some time.” _Yeah, looks like._ He chuckled before saying, “Dragons,” and then shook his head at the ridiculousness of it. “I guess that leaves Lucifer and The Apocalypse.”

“That’s the one I’m most worried about. It’s happening now, so it might be harder for you to hear.”

“Like all the stuff you said when we met was easy to hear?” No, I guess not. I smiled, and he said, “We should start big. You’ve never actually said if Lucifer gets out of his cage . . . just that killing Lilith is the final seal, so does he get out?” _Yes._

“Well, I got a pretty good idea of the answer as soon as you asked, but it’s more of a feeling without any details, so I’m exercising my right not to answer it,” I paused and then added, “You probably have your answer now anyway. If you still want to know later, I’ll tell you.”

“Alright. How about Alastair? I need you to tell me everything you know about him . . . uh, what can you tell me about Alistair coming topside?”

I sat up and looked at him. “I feel like a magic eight-ball right now.” He gave me a look that let me know he didn’t want me to hold out on him, so I nodded, and he asked me again. “Alistair will be after a woman named Anna Milton the first time you see him. She’s special, like an ex-angel special. Ruby’s knife doesn’t work on him.” That made him tense, but I couldn’t stop now, so I looked down and continued, “You’ll run into him again later when he’s trying to break a seal by killing reapers, but you and Sam will stop him, and then the angels will grab him, because they want answers on why he and Lilith are killing angels, but it’s actually another angel named Uriel who is killing the angels. Alistair won’t talk, because he doesn’t know anything, so they make you interrogate him. You do your thing, but after a while, Uriel breaks the devil’s trap without you knowing, and that’s when Alistair would have told you that you were the first seal. He would’ve used the distraction to walk up behind you without you noticing, and then he would’ve almost beaten you to death until Cas intervened. He would’ve incapacitated Cas and gone back to finish you off, but then Sam would’ve showed up, and being juiced up on demon blood, he was able to kill Alistair with his powers.” Dean had turned away from me at that point, and I wanted to give him time, so getting up I said, “I’m sure you’re sick of my voice, so I’ll give you some space.”

“Wait,” he said before turning towards me. “You, uh . . . when we met . . . you said you were telling me that I was the first seal so I didn’t have to hear it from Alistair first. Was it to stop him from getting the drop on me?” I hung my head and took a deep breath.

“Yeah, but I also thought screw letting him have that kind of power over you anymore . . . better to come from a stranger than him.”

Dean looked away from me and nodded, and I went to leave again until he said, “Just one more thing . . . What can you tell me about Uriel? Stop anywhere in the story if you can.” So, he wanted to finish helping me figure out my problem?

“Uriel is in Cas's garrison. He starts off as Cas's subordinate, but as Cas starts to care about you more, Uriel gets promoted above him, and he is the one killing . . . That’s it. That’s all I’m saying.” I knew that there was more about Uriel, but if I broke it up with something I’d already said about him, I could take back control over what I was saying. Dean had no idea how much he’d just helped me, and now look at him. “Do you want to go shoot something? Bobby installed flood lights, so I can practice in the early mornings this winter.”

Dean cleared his throat and said, “Yeah, you get everything set up. I’ll just be a few minutes.” _Okay, Dean. Take your time._


	14. The Truth About Beth

Dean had thought about Alistair getting topside ever since Beth said it to him the first night he met her. Getting a beating from Alistair and finding out about the first seal from Alistair weren’t nearly as bad as what he’d imagined would happen when he saw Alistair again. But then he never thought he’d have the chance to do any of the things he’d imagined doing to Alistair while he was on the rack. Those thoughts led to memories of when it was his turn to become the torturer. He couldn’t go there. He couldn’t start the torturing again even if it was on Alistair. Not up here. He had to keep Hell and Earth separate if he didn’t want to become on Earth what he’d been in the pit.

And Sam. Sam would use his powers to kill Alistair? If the demon blade wouldn’t get the job done, what was inside of Sam that could? Demon blood from Azazel . . . the more demon blood Sam drank, and the more Sam used his powers, the worse it got. It was slowly killing Sam and replacing him with something else. There was no doubt in Dean’s mind that if his brother could kill Alistair, he’d have no trouble killing Lilith. Why hadn’t he been able to stop Sam from using his powers? It’s not something he ever would’ve wanted Sam to use, so he knew he would’ve tried to get Sam to stop once he found out about it. He needed to figure out what he did wrong in the future Beth saw, and fix it. That decided. He went to go look for her.

“You ready,” Dean asked walking up to Beth at the firing range.

“Yeah, you can go first if you want.” He took aim and fired until he emptied the magazine. Maybe this hadn’t been such a bad idea.

“If Sam can kill Alistair, then he has to be able to kill Lilith, right?” Beth gave him a look that let him know he was right before she took her turn, so when she was done, he told her he wanted to know how he’d fucked up and let Sam get to the point where he could do it.

“Do you think you’ve fucked anything up so far?” He didn’t know. She wasn’t going to tell him what he wanted to know until he answered her, so he reluctantly told her that he should’ve killed Ruby before he died, because that’s when she wormed her way into their lives. Beth looked down and said, “So a better question would be?”

He thought about it and said, “What else do I need to know about Ruby?” She said to think of Ruby as Sam’s drug dealer, because the demon blood was like a drug to Sam. Dean hadn’t known that, but it was starting to make sense with the lying and going behind his back. Beth said that right now Sam could quit the demon blood cold turkey and be fine, but eventually, it would get to a point where if Sam didn’t get demon blood, he’d start getting the shakes, hallucinations, fly around the room, the whole nine-yards, which made him more susceptible to Ruby’s manipulation.

“Anything else? What about the angels? You said they want Lucifer out.” Beth told Dean that the angels got him to agree to give himself over completely to them and God. “How the fuck did they do that?”

She smiled at his reaction, and said, "They reprogrammed Cas and made him tell you that it was the only way to keep Sam from having to kill Lilith. Angels are big on getting permission before they do things . . . It doesn’t matter if they have to trick you to get it. They still need it. That was their way of getting you to give them permission to take you at any time, and they did . . . right when Sam was going to kill Lilith, so you couldn’t stop him, and that’s when Zachariah told you she was the final seal. You won Cas over to your side again, and he helped you find out where Sam was, sent you directly to Sam, and stayed behind to try and hold off the archangel Raphael who was trying to stop you. Cas died, and you were too late to stop Lucifer from getting out of the cage.”

“They kill Cas?!” Dean still had his doubts about him, but Beth believed in Cas. It’s like there were two Cas’s, the douchebag who kept handing out orders on the seals and saying shit, like if Dean didn’t stop Sam from using his powers, they would, and the Cas he met in that barn. If it was the Cas he met in the barn that got killed, that sucked, because that’s the Cas he was giving credit to for pulling him out of Hell and the Cas who seemed like he really wanted to look after Beth. That’s the Cas he was waiting on to help them in this fight.

“It’s really hazy, and I don’t have any details, but my feeling is he comes back, which is unheard of for angels.”

They talked about it a little longer, and he thought that a lot of his failures amounted to him not having been in the know in the future Beth saw. He was in the know now, and he still wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get through to Sam.

Moving to sit by her wall, Dean said, “What if I don’t know him anymore, and that’s why I can’t get through to him?” Took a lot to surprise her, and that had . . . Maybe it’s not something he’d ever normally admit to anyone, but he’d hit a dead end, and if he said that to Bobby, Bobby would probably just tell him to suck it up and deal with it without giving any real solutions.

“You could take off with Sam for a weekend of team building on one of those endurance courses. They have those in 2009, don’t they?” Dean did a double take of her and laughed when she smiled to let him know she was messing with him. She kept doing that. They could be in the middle of a seal breaking, and she could find a way to make him laugh. She looked down and said, “Yeah, I guess hunting should already do that. You’ve been filling him in on everything?” Yeah, every time he got off the phone with her, he told Sam what she’d said. Sure, it was because he wanted Sam to know, so they could do their job, but it was also because he wanted Sam to see that she was giving them solid intel. He nodded, so she said, “Even Hell?” Uh. No. Not that.

“Did I tell him about Hell on this show you watched?” She held her breath for a few seconds and gave him a small smile before she bowed her head. That was an answer without an answer if he ever saw one. He must’ve told Sam, and it hadn’t made a damn difference. She glanced at him and decided to change that subject.

“Right now Sam thinks he’s right, and unless you agree with him, he’s not going to listen you. That makes it tricky when you know he’s wrong. Either you give in and he does it with your support, or you don’t and he does it behind your back. You have to show him that he’s wrong, but that’s hard to do when we’re still so far away from midnight hour on the Doomsday Clock. If it were me, I’d get rid of the cheerleader telling him that what he’s doing is right every time you tell him he’s wrong, and I’d do it sooner rather than later.”

Yeah, he was planning on ganking Ruby the next time he saw her. He wanted to know when that’d be, so he could start putting a plan in place, and Beth said it would be when Ruby helped him and Sam trick the angels and Alistair into fighting over that ex-angel chick. As soon as that was done, Ruby had no real use other than to help Sam find him when the angels took Dean to interrogate Alistair. If they could convince Cas that Uriel was bad before that, none of that other stuff would happen. “So, you really think I can get Cas to go against Uriel before he figures it out for himself? Right now, he’s still mostly a dick with wings from what I can tell.”

Beth smiled briefly before she and said, “That’s his outer shell. If anyone can break through it, it’s you. You don’t have to put on a show. Just be you, and he’ll admire it.”

There had to be more to it than that. “So . . . be a dick? You know that’s the only reason I got that ghost sickness, right?”

“It was a spirit, Dean. They don’t think rationally.”

He shook his head. “We both know why I got sick.” She didn’t want to say it, but he knew she knew. He snapped off a blade of grass, focused his attention on it, and swallowed before he said, “I liked it . . . ripping them apart.” He paused and took a shaky breath. It was harder to say than he’d thought it’d be before he started. It was another 10 seconds before he built up enough courage to say, “I got pleasure out of inflicting the same kind of pain on them that was done to me . . . and nothing I do up here can change that or . . . make up for it.” Let’s see what she did with that. He wanted her honest to God thoughts on it . . . All she’d ever said was that he could change if he wanted. That wasn’t an opinion on what he’d done in Hell or him.

“Nothing I say about it will ever be the right thing to say, because I wasn’t there. You’re right about not being able to change it, and there’s no such thing as being able to make up for something that’s been done, because it doesn’t change that those things were done, but you shouldn’t discount the things you do now that you’re out . . . a lot of people would keep inflicting pain on others if they really liked doing it, or they’d stop caring, say ‘fuck it,’ and let the world burn, but you haven’t. You won’t, because you have a strong moral compass, and that’s why doing what you did tortures you as much as what happened when you were on the rack . . . That is what tells me that you’re a good man, whether you think so or not. In fact, it’s because you don’t think you are that you’re inspiring. That’s what will get through to Cas.”

“Yeah? What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” She had no idea who he really was. She couldn’t even imagine the kinds of things he’d done, and she sure as hell wouldn’t do them.

"Usually, everything I do is for a reason, so I don’t think I’ve ever really done anything wrong. You’d have to ask someone who knows me to confirm, but you can’t, so you’ll have to take my word for it.” He wasn’t letting her off that easy. He wasn’t done proving his point yet.

“Wanna know what Cas said about you in that barn?” If he pushed her away now, it would be better for her in the long run.

“Only if you want to tell me.” She hugged her knees to her chest in preparation for whatever he said. There was no way she could prepare for this.

“You know how everyone says you look like Rachel?” She may not have ever said anything to him about it, but he didn’t need her to nod to know she did. “Turns out it was really Rachel that looked like you. The day you were born, the angels took your soul to Heaven, and . . . I don’t know how. Cas doesn’t either. He said it’s supposed to be impossible for a soul to be ripped apart, but it must be possible, because it’s what they did to you. They took pieces out, put them back in your body, and they became Rachel. So Rachel was you . . . just half of you, I guess.”

She gave him an unsure smile and said, “You’re going to have to try harder than that if you want to go on the attack after I said something nice to you.” She had him dead to rights on why he’d wanted an argument. She didn’t hold it against him. He didn’t know how he felt about that. He did know that she thought too much of him.

“You weren’t walking around in any body. She had it. They left you up there. Cas said when people die their souls stay the same age as when they died, but your body and Rachel’s half of your soul were down here, so you aged with her. Cas said that to cover up what they did, they had to keep you in Heaven’s prison. I guess you got good at breaking out of your cell, and on one of your escapes, you found something nobody in the universe is supposed to have and used it as leverage to get down here. Rachel wasn’t supposed to die when I did, but whatever you found made that happen, so that’s why she’s dead, and you’re here now.”

Cas said she could block angels from knowing what she was thinking, and that’s the only reason it’d worked. Apparently it was rare, but not impossible for people to be able to do that. Dean couldn’t. That’s why Cas hid her memories until closer to the time they needed them. Didn’t seem to make much of a difference, because now he knew about that Uriel dick, and he hadn’t met him yet, and he thought she said something about an angel named Zachariah too . . . she was telling him way more than Cas intended.

Beth drew him from his thoughts by saying, “But I grew up with my Dad, not in Heaven’s prison. And why don’t I look exactly like her if this is the same body? Everyone thinks we’re the same at first, but then they say we look like sisters.” It was hard to explain.

“I think it’s sort of like what happened with me and the djinn. Part of your deal meant you got to think you had a normal life, so you could learn how to interact with humans. Cas thinks that maybe your deal with God is how you know about the future from a TV show that never happened . . . and the way you look . . . My best guess is maybe you’re putting your own stamp on your body now that you’ve got it back?”

She was going to say something but opted out and was quiet for a few minutes. He was ready for her to call him a liar or throw some insults his way, but instead she said, “So, she is me, and I am her, and I don’t remember her or me at all?” _Is that it?_

“You’re not the same person. Different lives . . . different memories . . . you’re different people."

She shook her head and looked down. “Is that why you asked me what the worst thing I’ve done was? I mean I killed your girlfriend, right?”

Dean turned to face her and said, “I wasn’t thinking about her when I asked that.”

Beth was quiet for a few seconds and then looked confused before she said, “You’re sure, because this came up right after that?” _Awesome. I wanted her to see how much of a dick I am, but made her think that I think she’s a dick._

He licked his lips and ducked his head before he said, “It wasn’t that . . . It wasn’t to prove . . . I just,” He paused and took a deep breath before saying, “I don’t hold it against you. I guess I get why you did it if you thought you were the same person, and you kinda were . . . I mean when I look at you, I don’t see her, but it’s not really like she’s gone either.”

When he looked up at Beth, one of her eyebrows was arched in this look she got when she didn’t believe something he was saying. “You gave her a choice on signing back on with you, and she said no.” Beth looked away from him, and he thought about how she’d looked when he came out to see what was wrong earlier. He’d wanted to make things better, and he had, but now . . . he’d gone the other way with it and made them worse.

“So, I would’ve had two personalities?” _No._

“She would have become you . . . maybe you would’ve gotten some of her memories, but you are who the two of you would’ve been together . . . so you would’ve been in charge . . . like if you’re the head, she’s the heart or something, so she wouldn’t have really been her anymore.”

Beth looked down and muttered, “How magnanimous of me." No, she was supposed to get mad at him, not her.

Dean quickly added, “You made sure she wasn’t put in prison the way you were. She’s up there in the Heaven the way everyone else is.” If Rachel had been in the same position, she would have made sure that Beth rotted in Heaven’s prison. That’s just the way she was, and it was probably why she said, ‘no,’ to giving Beth her soul back.

“Any idea why they’d do that to me?”

That was a question he wasn’t ready to answer just yet, so he sat back next to her against the wall and said, “I know some of it, but I haven’t figured it out yet. I should’ve said something about the rest sooner.” She gave him a half-nod, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t say anything for a while . . . He didn’t usually have to wonder what she was thinking, because she told him.

Maybe if he nudged her, she’d say something? He gave it a try, and she said, “I’m years younger than I thought I was . . . I’ll actually have to turn 30 for the first time, because technically when I turned 30 the first time it wasn’t real. I lived the only life I’ve ever known over the span of 4 months in a djinn-like Matrix set up by angels that don’t know how to interact with humans. Or is the Matrix even a real film?” She wouldn’t look at him anymore.

“Yeah, that’s real . . . movies, news, stuff outside the show you watched about Sam and me, all that should still be the same.” When she didn’t say anything he continued, “Look, I get it if you’re pissed at me or -“ He stopped when she did something he didn’t expect and laid her head on his arm like she had earlier in the night.

“I’m not mad at you for not telling me sooner. How were you supposed to tell me my whole life was a lie? It’s worse than saying I can’t go back home, because it means I have no one and nothing, and I never did. I don’t even know what that makes me.” _Someone that got fucked over by angels?_ “You have a good plan with what you want to do to prevent Sam from killing Lilith. I’ll complicate things if Sam wants me gone, and you keep fighting him on it. You need to get everything you can out of me using your questions, and then I have to go, so I–“ _What? No._

“Why would this change you being with us?”

She shrugged and said, “I don’t know . . . I guess . . . it’s like I’ve lived 2 full lifetimes in less than 30 years . . . one I don’t remember at all, but I feel the weight of it . . . I think it’s where the fear comes from. It’s probably why it didn’t take much convincing on your part for me to believe you just now . . . And I have another life that I do remember. It was meant to act like a band aid for whatever happened while I was up there . . . to put some distance between my time in Heaven and on Earth and yeah, probably to teach me how to be human . . . and the fake life worked for the most part. It felt and still feels real, but it wasn’t . . . That means I’ve only really been living on Earth for 2 months. 2 months is nothing when you’ve been alive for what feels like 64 years. I think I should see what the real world is like. I’ve put it off long enough. And all I’ve done since I met you two is cause friction. There’s no reason for me to be here other than to tell you the things you need to know about the future, and then go, because I’ll only get in the way.”

It wasn’t really the right time for her to start exploring the world when the Apocalypse was heading their way, and she was smack dab in the middle of it with them now. Ruby let him know she knew what Beth said about Lilith when he caught Sam using his powers. That meant there were probably demons out there looking for Beth now . . . And if those memories of her ‘fake life’ felt real to her, then they might as well have been real. No exploring necessary. He’d made a massive mistake in telling her all of this . . . Yeah, he’d wanted to put some distance between them, but he hadn’t wanted her to go off on her own. 

If she left, he knew without a doubt, that he’d never be able to find her again. It’s like she’d been trained in pick pocketing, grifting, and breaking and entering as much as she had science in the life she’d lived between Heaven and the day he met her. He didn’t know why, but he suspected that it was because whoever took care of her for those 4 months wanted her to be prepared for a life on the run. She wouldn’t leave a paper trail. She wouldn’t stay in motels. She’d break into abandoned houses if she ever needed somewhere to stay. She was smart with the way she worked that security set up Bobby had. She’d cut the camera feeds and wouldn’t leave fingerprints. Him acting like he was an FBI agent wouldn’t do shit if he had nowhere to start an investigation . . . and what happened if she was taken by demons? He’d never know it, and she would die.

This was the third time she’d offered to leave since he met her, and every time it left him feeling the same way. He didn’t understand it, because he hardly knew her, but it made him feel like he didn’t have it in him to lose her on top of everything else . . . He needed to know where she was, and he needed to know that if he called, she’d pick up even if he couldn’t see her every day, and he wanted to see her every day a hell of a lot more than he’d ever admit . . . that minute he spent with her on the phone before the start of each case . . . that was usually the highlight of his day, and she hardly ever knew anything about whatever case they were on, so it wasn’t that. Maybe it was because when he got out of Hell, protecting her was the first good thing he was able to do in so long that it meant more to him, or maybe he just needed an honest to God friend. Whatever it was, he couldn't let her go.

“You can’t go. It’s not safe out there with what you know.” It was his responsibility to make sure she was somewhere safe, and he couldn’t do that if she left.

“Well, unless you’re willing to let Sam take me out as a belated birthday present, I think me disappearing off the grid is the best option.” He flicked his eyes towards her to see how serious she was being, and she looked away. “If I stay, I’ll just drive more of a wedge between the two of you. I need to go to keep that from happening.” He needed to find a way to make her change her mind, or she’d disappear as soon as he and Sam left Bobby’s again.

“Beth, look at me.” She took a deep breath before doing what he asked, and he knew she was just planning on shooting him down, but he said what he had to say anyway. “You told me when we met you’d stick around for as long as I wanted, and me wanting you around hasn’t changed.” Beth exhaled the breath she’d been holding before she looked down again, but she hadn’t shot him down, so he added, “Besides, I think Bobby likes the company.”

She smiled briefly, and then said, “Well, I guess I couldn’t disappoint Bobby. His place is pretty lonely when nobody’s around, and you heard him at dinner. He missed training me today.” She leaned into his arm before she added, “And you are technically my first real friend. If that’s what you want, then I should keep my word, so I don’t let you down . . . even if I think it’s a mistake.”

“So, we gonna have to find you a shrink now?”

She went to stand and answered, “Nah, then I’d be locked away. Couldn’t get out of one prison just to go into another. I’ll deal with it . . . probably with copious amounts of denial, but I’ll deal with it.” Then she looked down at him and asked, “What time do you want to start training tomorrow?” He was gonna be sore tomorrow. He was sore right now. He didn’t feel like training tomorrow. He was gonna have to find a way to stay ahead of her on that run first thing too. _God, I hate running. And push-ups suck._

“Same time?”

She smiled and said, “Yeah, ok,” before helping him up, and they both headed back inside.


	15. Heads Will Roll

The next day Dean and I went through the same routine. I managed to do everything a lot faster than I had been, because I thought that if this body had been able to do it before, then it could now. But I couldn’t let myself dwell on what everything meant for me on a personal level, or I’d be swallowed up by it. My past was a farce. My personality was based on my past, so that meant I was probably a fake as well. It was best for my sanity if I forgot about everything that came before I met them and tried to focus instead on what was real.

When I thought of Rachel, I understood her decision to pay me back the only way she could by not giving me my soul back. I guess it was her soul now. I kind of started to think of her as a long lost twin I never knew. It made my brain understand the whole thing better if I thought of her as a separate person. Dean and I didn’t talk about it again. That’s the way I wanted it, but I’m sure he was more than happy to oblige. At least it didn’t feel like an unspoken thing between us anymore now that it was out.

Two days later, Sam said that they had a case. A man had choked to death on a bunch of razor blades. As they were leaving, Dean asked about it, and I told him that it was a seal. It had to do with raising the demon Samhain. I said that there were two witches that were working together, a teacher and a student, and I had to tell him that he’d be meeting Uriel for the first time. Angels can read minds, but they have to care enough to want to put the effort in to do it, and Uriel didn’t think much of humans, so I doubted he would want to know what one of us was thinking as long as Dean didn’t let on that he knew anything about Uriel when they met.

After they were gone, Bobby and I slipped back into our comfortable routine, and Ivan and I kept up our sparring practice. Both of them noticed an improvement in my skills, and it made me feel like I had turned a corner of sorts. Dean still called me before a hunt, but he also started calling after hunts to give me an update too. They still hadn’t been able to stop the Samhain seal, but seeing Sam exorcise such a powerful demon with his mind had made Dean more determined in his plan to get rid of Ruby.

Dean had also, in his own Dean way, told Cas that if angels started dropping, it’d be Uriel he should suspect. They’d been sitting in a park after the hunt, and it had seemed like the right time. He wasn’t sure if Cas believed him, or if he’d just set things back with he and Cas trusting one another. Cas was still hard for him to read. I think Cas must’ve wondered if I had told Dean that, and I hoped that would make Cas believe him. I mean if he’s the one who hid my memories from me, then he knew they were legit, right?

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, I was at work, and my phone was on silent in the back. We were slammed that night, so I didn’t notice any missed calls until I made it to my car after locking up and saw that Dean had called three times. His messages didn’t sound urgent, so, I waited until I got home to call him back. “What was the name of that chick you said the angels and Alistair were gonna fight over?” Maybe it was more urgent than I’d thought. I hadn’t even had a chance to say hello.

“Ummm . . . Anna Milton, Why?” _Is it finally happening?_

“Because we’re on that case right now. The powerful demon Ruby keeps saying is after this girl. It’s Alistair, isn’t it?” He must’ve been talking outside away from Sam. He had a tone when he did that.

“Yeah.”

He asked me a couple of questions about what to expect from Alistair, and then said, “After this, I can take Ruby out? Sam keeps talking about why he trusts her. I need to do it before this gets worse. We’ve still got another 2 days of drivin’ to get there. So, when’s the best time to do it?” He said it more to himself than to me, but I still felt like answering.

“Wait until after the case takes you to Kentucky . . . the fight will be in a barn. When Anna shouts for everyone to close their eyes, do it, because she’ll be about to take her grace back, but get close to Ruby then. Ruby and Sam will have their eyes closed too. Ruby should already be weakened by Alistair’s interrogation methods, and maybe that’ll slow her down some. Don’t get tunnel vision on killing Ruby. Make sure you have Cas’s back during the fight, because he’ll have a bit of trouble with Alistair, and helping Cas is more important than killing Ruby . . . Dean, are you sure you want to do this? I mean Sam may never forgive you if he doesn’t find out the hard way that she’s evil.” At this point in time, Sam still saw her as a innocent.

“What? Are you kidding me? This was your idea! He’ll forgive me eventually, and even if he doesn’t, I’m not going to let him go down that road with a demon on his shoulder. Let me talk to Bobby.”

Late in the afternoon on the day that Dean and Sam got to Anna’s psych ward, Bobby got a call from Ellen saying that she and Jo needed help with a vampire nest outside of a small town near Boulder. He was the closest hunter, and nobody else was available, so he decided to go. I didn’t want to wait around to hear about Ruby, and I needed to start hunting sometime, so I asked Bobby if I could go. He turned me down by saying that as far as he knew I wasn’t supposed to be hunting. I was just supposed to be learning to protect myself from the things they hunted. “If you really want me to understand everything I’ve been learning, then I have to get practical experience.”

He still wouldn’t give in on it, so I told him that if he wouldn’t take me with him, I’d find my own way there, because I was an adult. “Well, then you’re old enough not to act like a teenager . . . if it’s the only way I can get you to stop yappin’ at me, you can go, but you stay with me, do what I say, and don’t question my orders.” He actually made me swear that I would, and as soon as I had, I rushed off to pack a duffle along with the mini-arsenal I’d accrued. _What else am I forgetting? Oh, Yuri._ I called and told him I wouldn’t be in for a few nights, because I was going on a hunt. He told me to be careful and to let him know when I got back. He seemed better with it than Bobby had.

On our way to Colorado, I pulled something out that I’d bought online when we studied vampires. “What’s that for?” I proudly explained that it was a tranquilizer gun.

“I emptied the darts and filled them with dead man’s blood.”

Bobby looked at me with his eyebrows raised and said, “That’s not half bad. You think of that on your own?” I told him I had, and he shook his head. “Might be a bit of hunter in there somewhere. Course you could have just talked to me and saved your money by using a crossbow. You been practicin’ with it? Know it works reliably?” It was my new toy. I used it all the time when nobody was looking.

“Yeah, it works perfectly. I appreciate the things you’ve given me, but I like the feel of this, and it’s mine, not a hand-me-down from you or Dean.”

“So, you’ve been thinkin’ about goin’ on at hunt for awhile then?” I told him I had, but that I’d decided to go out with him first, because Dean would make me sit in the car the whole time. He chuckled and said I was probably right before turning serious and saying not to put the cart before the horse. He might make me stay in the car the whole time too. I told him I’d do what he told me to because I swore I would, but if he wanted me to get experience, then it should be when I was actually on a hunt. He looked sad then, like he was regretful or felt guilty. I knew why, but I didn’t say anything about it. It was my choice to make. Maybe I’d hate it, but I wouldn’t know until I actually tried it.

When we got to the town, Bobby got a call from Sam and Dean and lined them up with a psychic named Pamela Barnes. “Bobby? You wanna hear something strange?” He put his phone back in his pocket and gave me a wary look before telling me to go ahead, so I said, “When Dean got out of Hell, you would’ve called Pamela, and she would’ve held a séance to find out what brought him back . . . Her eyes would’ve been burnt out when she contacted Cas and saw his true form.” Bobby relaxed, I guess because I wasn’t giving him bad news for a change.

“You got all that just now?” Yeah, it was weird, like an instant download.

"Yeah, it all kind of hit me at once.”

He saw that I didn’t have an explanation for why and said, “Maybe it don’t need to be hidden once it’s already past . . . Was it just her name that brought it on?” I nodded, so he said, “Or maybe since it didn’t happen the way you remember it, it ain’t covered under the terms of whatever Cas did to your memory . . . keep a lid on it. Might be good to start keepin’ a tally of what we change and what we don’t without that angel interferin’ with it.” That sounded like a good idea, so I agreed to keep it to myself. I might tell Dean, but I wouldn’t tell anybody else.

We found Ellen and Jo after booking our rooms in the motel where they were staying. They hadn’t known I would be there, and things were awkward until Ellen extended her hand and said, “Think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Ellen Harvelle, and this is my daughter Jo. I’m sorry about tying you up back at Bobby’s.”

I took her hand and said, “Beth Foley. No hard feelings. I’m sorry for hurting Jo. I never would have done what I did to her if I’d known she got hurt the night before, and I’m sorry for taking some of my frustration at the situation out on your truck. I’m just glad Bobby has other people out there who care enough to look after him.” After that Bobby grumbled something about not being a damn baby, and Ellen filled us in on the hunt.

They’d narrowed the location of the nest down to an abandoned horse ranch about 3 miles outside of town. We decided to search the place tomorrow to see if the vampires were really there and to find out how many there were. The day after tomorrow is when we were going in to clear the nest. It was pretty exciting.

With that decided, we got some food and brought it back to the Harvelles’ room to eat and have a few beers before going to bed. I liked them. They told me stories of hunts they’d been on recently and a few stories about when they ran the Roadhouse. They even told me rumors about some of Bobby’s old hunts that he would either confirm or deny.

Early the next morning, Bobby and I had a little earlier start than Ellen and Jo. We went to a field in the middle of nowhere to make a putrid ashy concoction that would mask our scent from the vampires. He already had some of the ash on him, but he wanted me to get practice making it and talked me through it without Ellen and Jo there to interrupt or distract me. I think he was finding it difficult to slip out of teacher mode, and it made me realize how far we’d come since he’d threatened to kill me if I did anything to hurt Sam and Dean the first time I shook his hand.

After we’d covered ourselves in the ash and went back to pick Ellen and Jo up, we drove to within 2-miles of the horse farm and got out of the truck to hoof it through the trees and underbrush the rest of the way. We didn’t want the vampires to hear us coming. When we reached the clearing that surrounded the property, Ellen and Jo went around to the west and headed north, while Bobby and I checked out the south and the east. Nobody was to go into any buildings and everyone was to meet back up at the vehicles by 5. It was a big property, much bigger than the map had indicated. It took us until nearly 4 o’clock to find where the vamps were holed up in some stables to the east. 

The only door entrances were to the north and south. Windows were scattered throughout, but none of them were directly above the stalls. There were about 10 stalls in total, 5 on each side of the aisle, and we couldn’t see directly into any of them. There were blind spots and hidden corners galore. We couldn’t even really get a very accurate count of how many vampires were in there. From what we could tell, Bobby estimated that there were at least 10. It was getting late and with it being nearly sundown, we decided to head back to the truck and meet up with Ellen and Jo, so we could tell them what we’d found. 

Ellen didn’t like the set up and thought that Jo and I should stay at the motel while she and Bobby took care of it, but Bobby said that they’d need the extra eyes and ears and since they had them, they didn’t need to turn it into a suicide mission. We sat up a good chunk of the night making plans until everyone was happy and knew what they were doing, and then we had to set off early to make it to the stables by noon, which meant there wasn’t much time for sleep.

When we reached the stables, the plan was for me to go to the north facing side of the building and scale up to the window in the loft using some old stacked bales of straw that were against the wall. They’d been there for a long time judging by the mustiness and decay, but they would get me up to that window if I stacked them up a bit higher. Once inside the barn, I was to crawl along the loft to get into the right position above the aisle on the ground floor, and on Bobby’s signal, I was supposed to start an aerial assault using my tranq gun. Jo was to do the same from opposite side of the isle, and hopefully, Ellen and Bobby would be able to take out the disabled vamps below us. Jo and I were to stay where we were until all the vamps were at least knocked out with dead man’s blood, but if some of the vamps got away through a window, Jo would handle it. I had to stay behind to make sure I took out any of the remaining vamps we hadn’t gotten to yet, and when that was done, I could follow her if she still needed help.

It sounded like a pretty simple plan, but my first lesson in hunting was that no matter how much you plan, everything could go to shit in a second. At first everything went ok. I made it up to the window thankful for that stupid wall of mine. After climbing that so many times, this was easy. I opened the flap for the window and swung myself up and in as quietly as I could. After my eyes adjusted to the dark, I quickly scanned my side of the loft to make sure I was alone. It looked like I was, and I hadn’t woken up any of the sleeping vamps downstairs either. So far, so good. I made my way to the edge of the loft, got into position, and waited for Bobby and Ellen to make it inside. They got in without any problems, and Bobby put his hand above his head to do a silent count down. In that instant, time slowed down as I focused on my first target.

Countdown complete, I shot the biggest vamp I could see, reloaded, and went onto the next. I had known that it would take a few seconds for the dead man’s blood to take effect, but at the sound of the bellow from the first one I’d hit, I picked up the pace of my shots as the other vamps began to wake up. I counted 11 vamps and managed to take down 5 of them quickly with my tranq gun. Bobby was fighting his way through 3 vamps that Jo and I hadn’t gotten to yet, and Ellen was dealing with the ones that were down for the count on her end. That’s when the 12th vampire came out of the shadows in the corner of the loft behind Jo, and I heard her scream as it sunk its fangs into her.

He didn’t see me across the aisle, so I took aim and fired, hitting him in the arm he had wrapped around Jo. I reloaded my tranq dart, took out another one of the vampires fighting with Bobby to help even the odds a bit more, and got up from my position, so I could go to Jo. I was the only one that could do it safely, but there was Ellen yelling for Jo and making her way towards one of the ladders. One of Bobby’s 2 vamps took that as a cue to lunge at her, but she’d have to deal with that on her own, because I was running back to my window at that point. I swung myself up to the roof, sprinted across it, and threw myself in through the window Jo had used to enter her side of the stable earlier.

Back inside the building, I found the sedated vamp and pulled him off of Jo to check on her. She’d been bitten in the shoulder, but she said she was ok and to just kill it. I steadied myself, thought of him as one of my practice dummies, raised my machete above my head, made sure no blood would get in my mouth by keeping it shut, and swung. It was not a clean blow. It was harder to do than I’d thought it would be. I only managed to get about half of the way through his neck the first time, and he started gurgling and jerking and his blood was pumping out like a fountain and going everywhere. I was glad he’d been knocked out. He may have tried to kill Jo and had probably killed plenty of other humans, but it would have been horrific if he’d been awake. I got it on the second try.

_Maybe I need more machete practice_ , I thought, on the walk back to the trucks. _What if he’d been standing there ready to attack, and I only cut half his head off? Probably would have slowed him down, but slow isn't dead, and he could've still been a problem. Maybe it’d be easier if I swung it like a baseball bat when they’re still standing?_

“So, what’d you think of your first hunt?” Bobby asked glancing at me.

“Planning doesn’t account for everything,” I answered while looking over at Jo, who was cradling her arm, “and I think in a pinch I can act without having to think about it . . . but . . . I definitely need to practice my machete skills, because that kill was embarrassing.”

He patted me on the shoulder and said, “Well, it don’t matter if it’s pretty, just as long as they’re dead. Ya did a good job, kiddo . . . Whose up for a drink?”

We went back to the room, and they helped me bandage Jo’s arm, so I could learn how to do it the way they did before we went to the bar down the road. We didn’t get back until after the bar had last call, so it was a late night. Ellen and Jo were taking off early in the morning, but Bobby said I could sleep until 10 as a reward, since the hunt had technically been a success and because from the looks of me, I’d need to sleep it off. Drinks and sleep. Who knew going on a hunt was like having a mini-vacation from my life?

I hadn’t noticed my phone or the missed calls on it until I got into bed, so it wasn’t until then that I called Dean back. “Where are you?” He sounded weird.

“I’m with Bobby,” I replied while settling back against the headboard.

“Yuri said you went on a hunt.”

I sat up at his tone and said, “So what if I did?”

I don’t think he liked that. He started to yell, “You’re not supposed -,” before he cut himself off to calm down and quickly said, “You’re not supposed to be hunting. You’re just supposed to be learning how to protect yourself. Where are you?”

I sobered myself up a bit to say, “I’m tired of training. I am . . . I did . . . well I was hunting vampires. They’re dead now . . . I think we’re in the first town south of Boulder. Bobby said I could sleep until 10, and then we’ll be back.” I might’ve giggled a little at the end because of what I’d said.

“Where’s Bobby?” Why? He wasn’t going to yell at him, was he?

“I wanted to hunt, and this came up, so I went, but if it hadn’t, I would’ve taken the next call he got or found one on my own . . . So, don’t give him a hard time. It was all me . . . he agreed under duress. I annoyed him until he did.”

Dean sighed and said, “I just need to talk to him. Put him on the phone, and then go sleep it off, Free Agent Foley.”

I grumbled about going back out into the cold as I threw my boots back on and shuffled over to Bobby’s motel room. I came up with a catchy little rhythm as my knock, and when he opened the door, I said, “Hiya, Bobby. Dean wants to talk to you. I think you’re in trouble.” I handed him my phone and shuffled back to my room. I didn’t think much more about it other than to think that I’d finished my first hunt, and Dean shouldn’t be upset with me, because nobody died, and we saved 2 people, so it was a win.

I woke up the next morning to a pounding in my head and groaned before dragging my pillow over my face. _Why did I drink so much last night?_ The pounding stopped, so I decided to get some more sleep until I heard Dean in my room saying, “Come on. We’ve gotta go,” while he grabbed my duffel bag and started to throw my things into it.

“What? Do I have time for a shower?” I really needed one.

“Do what you’ve gotta do, but be ready to go in 15,” he answered before turning and shoving my bag towards me. I stared at it.

“What’s with the urgency?” Instead of answering, he shook my bag at me, so I grabbed it and got up to go have what felt like the world’s fastest shower. I was back out and ready to go with everything on except for my boots in 14 minutes. “What about Bobby?” I asked heading out the door with my bags slung over my shoulder a minute later.

“He went back. Said he had some things to take care of, and then he’s going to give Yuri a call to tell him you aren’t gonna be comin’ back for awhile.” _At this rate, Yuri will be filled in on what’s going on before I am. Maybe he already has been._

“What happened?” Dean put the car in reverse and swung it around to get us out of the motel parking lot.

“Give me your phone.” I felt around my pockets and then my bag until I found it and handed it to him. Bobby must’ve given it back to me before he – Dean rolled down his window and just chucked it out.

I turned to watch my phone bounce along the road and yelled, “If you don’t tell me what’s going on, then I’m going to follow that phone out the window.” When I looked back at Dean, there was the hint of a smirk on his face. I thought about what I’d said and slumped a little. Maybe I was still tipsy. Best to move on from it quickly. Maybe he’d forget. “What happened?”

Dean’s eyes stayed on the road, but he finally said, “I fucked up.” I guess he and Sam had gotten Cas and Uriel to fight against Alistair over Anna, but when Dean’s chance to kill Ruby came up, Sam had been standing next to her and pulled her out of the way at the last second. Dean still stabbed her in a place where it would have been fatal if she’d been a human, like a lung or liver or something. I guess it was bad. Sam said that Dean had betrayed him and wouldn’t budge from Ruby’s side. He said that he’d survived without Dean for 4 months and could do it again. Then he told Dean to leave, or he was going to take the Impala. Either way he wasn’t going to go with Dean. Dean obviously wasn’t going to go just like that, so Ruby found a way to make him go by telling Sam that now he could go ahead and get rid of me, since some deal he’d made with Dean was null and void now.

Dean told Ruby to shut up and went to make her shut up, but Sam pushed him away from her, saying that she was right. Dean told Sam that the Sam he knew wouldn’t go around saving demons, and the Sam he knew definitely wouldn’t go around wanting to kill humans. He added that Sam couldn’t kill Lilith, and if Sam was training to go after her for him, he needed to stop, because he was back now, and they’d figure something else out. Sam had responded to that by saying that it was like Ruby had said, “The deal was off.”

Dean said Sam might not do anything if Ruby lived, but he’d definitely come after me if Ruby died and that he wasn’t willing to take that chance. He’d driven all night to get to Sioux Falls and had gone to Yuri’s when he didn’t see Bobby or me at Bobby’s. Yuri had told him that I was on a hunt, and then Dean had gone back to Bobby’s to see if he could find where we were in Bobby’s notes. That’s where he’d been when I called him back last night. “Here. Bobby told me where to find these at his place. Ruby was a witch . . . it’s an amulet that’ll keep anybody from being able to find you using magic.” He tossed it to me, and I examined it. I’d never felt so guilty in my life. I should’ve left when I had the chance.

“So, by helping you plan Operation: Kill Ruby Early, I was helping plan my own demise . . . kind of ironic.” I wondered when they’d made that deal.

Dean chanced a glance in my direction before saying, “That’s your take away from what I said? I may not know him as well as I thought I did, but I know him well enough to know he meant it. He still thinks you’re trying to send me back to Hell, and he’s got her tellin’ him he’s right . . . and I can’t get him to change his mind . . . I’ve tried, and now with this . . . I’d say you just went to the top of his most wanted list ahead of Lilith.”

“I get it. Everything you’re thinking about Ruby . . . that’s what he thinks about me . . . what I don’t understand is why you’re here with me now instead of with him . . . You should have told him everything. Why I’m here, or how I know everything, or -” I stopped when his jaw clench and his hands tighten around the wheel.

“I’m not telling him anything about you until he knows the difference between right and wrong and definitely not when he’s telling that bitch everything.” He turned on the radio after that. Guess he was done talking.


	16. Life Off the Grid

Dean and Beth had been on the road for a couple of days, only stopping to fill up for gas. Beth tried to stay up with him through it all even though she had a massive hangover the first day, and he wasn’t up for much talking.

Why the hell had he had to make that deal with Sam in the first place? He should’ve known then how screwed up Sam’s priorities were. How could Sam not see that a demon is a demon, and there are no good demons? They always have an agenda. How the fuck could Sam side with Ruby, a demon, over him? Even if Sam didn’t know for sure that killing Lilith would let Lucifer out of his cage . . . releasing Lucifer was a pretty big fucking thing to risk if there was even a chance it could happen . . . No, this was about more than revenge. It had to be. It was about Sam wanting to prove he was right and Sam liking the power he felt when he went all Darth Vadar on demons, and Sam killing Lilith would probably be the ultimate fix.

Dean pulled up to the cabin and parked. It was just as secluded as he remembered it being. He came here once back when Sam was at college. His Dad had told him about it. It was an old hunter’s stop over that didn’t get much use anymore, so he needed to treat it like it was any other un-warded place. He did a quick sweep of the house before carrying Beth to the couch, salting all of the windows and doors, and finished by painting devil’s traps at the front and back entrances before carrying her to the spare room next to his and then went to his own room for the night, but it’s not like he got much sleep.

Dean awoke the next morning to the smell of bacon and found Beth in the kitchen with breakfast nearly done. Good thing she made him stop at a store yesterday. He was starving if nothing else. “So, I was thinking that if you wanted to, after your run, we could start doing some training. Bobby said something about you needing to work on your finesse with a machete.” He took a bite of bacon and smirked as she choked on her toast. He hadn’t mentioned the hunt to her since he’d found her in Colorado and had been waiting for the right moment to bring it up.

“He told you about that, did he? I felt kind of bad for it. It’s blood was going all over Jo’s jeans, and it was jerking, not like dying twitching, more like full on spasms, so the blood just kept pumping and spraying everywhere like a fountain,” she paused to glance at him and shrugged. “I could use some practice. I don’t ever want to have that happen again.”

He hadn’t been happy when Yuri told him she was on a hunt, but it’s not like she’d backed down when he called her out on it. “I thought Bobby was training you to defend yourself, not to hunt.”

He scraped up the last of his yoke with his toast, and she said, “Dean, you have me training 6 hours a day on just lore and hand-to-hand combat with and ex-Russian military –“

“I never told you to get a military instructor for –“

Beth cut him off with a laugh. “Dean . . . come on. It doesn’t matter if it was Ivan or Bobby. The intent is the same, and that doesn’t even include everything else you’ve got me doing . . . lock picking? If I didn’t already know how to do that, how would that help me protect myself?”

When she laid it out like that, it did seem like this is the path he’d wanted her to take, but he honestly didn’t want her to be a hunter. It’s just training like that was the only way he knew to get her ready for anything that might come for her. It’s the way his Dad had trained him whenever he was around, every summer break, every weekend, every evening after school, and sometimes in the mornings before school. “Thought maybe you could be a professional thief?” She didn’t buy that, so he said, “I never wanted you to go out there looking for trouble. I just know the kinds of things that –“

Beth shook her head and said, “Nothing that happens to me is on you . . . What happens to me is my responsibility.” Yeah, right.

“Whose responsibility is it to keep Lilith from finding out –“

Beth smiled, so he stopped, and she said, “Lilith already knows the most vital piece of information I have. I let the cat out of the bag on that the day I got here.” No, she didn’t. He did. Lilith wouldn’t know anything about her if he hadn’t told Sam what she said.

“What about the angels? They’re as bad as she is.”

Beth shrugged. “I’m not worried about them either.” She should be. Cas was a fucking hard ass, and maybe he was supposed to be on their side, but he wasn’t right now. Uriel was worse.

“What happened to you being worried about something taking you?” She relaxed, like she had an answer for that too.

“That was when I thought I couldn’t control what comes out of my mouth. I can . . . mostly if I keep my mouth shut . . . you helped me figure that out, and for that, I'm eternally grateful.”

“So, you’ve got angels and demons after you, and now you want to add whatever you decide to hunt into that?”

When Beth nodded, Dean sat forward before saying, “I can’t bring you –“

Beth quickly countered, “Who said anything about going with you and Sam?” _Oh._

“Well, Bobby –“ She shook her head. “Well, you’re not doing it on your own.”

Beth’s eyebrow arched before she said, “It’s not up to you. We’ll stay in touch. You can call the way you have been. What does it matter where I am as long as I take the call?” It just did.

“Pretty hard to stay in contact when you’re dead.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “Have a little faith in me . . . I have met God. I may not remember it, but I have, or I wouldn’t be here. The part of me that survived Heaven is still in here . . . I’ll be okay.” She had him there, but he wasn’t giving up on this.

“Do anything else, Beth . . . for me.” That threw her off.

She sat forward a few seconds later, and he just knew she was going to tell him no. He looked away from her in an effort to try and control his temper, and she touched one of his hands to get his attention. “Dean, you were on the right track with all of the training. Needing to know how to protect myself is a given, but it’s more than that. What if what I really need is to be able to fight back? What if that’s what I need to control that anxiety I feel all the time? I may not remember Heaven, but I can feel it . . . I have been surrounded by bigger more powerful beings my entire life . . . I mean the day I was born? Have you actually seen how small a newborn is?” He’d seen babies; maybe not newborns, but he got her point. A baby surrounded by angels like Uriel wasn’t a happy thought. “I am not a victim. I’m –“

He squeezed her hand to make her stop and said, “Alright. I get it, but if it’d been up to me, you would have sat in the car.”

She smiled and said, “Okay. I already did my run earlier though, so we can start as soon as we’re done here, if you want.”

It wasn’t what she’d been expecting, but at least he was alternating in with her when she got tired. He was convinced that it would help with her strength and swinging skills. First, he had her start chopping down a big tree in the back, and after it fell, they started chopping it into firewood to build up a different set of muscles for the downward swing. At dinner she asked him how long they’d be there. He said he wasn’t sure and that he just needed to buy some time to come up with a plan. He knew why she’d asked, so he said they’d only do the woodcutting every other day, and she muttered, “Wax on. Wax off. Paint the fence. Sand the floor . . . No worries as long as it works.” It had to . . . Her technique was fine. Strength’s all that she was lacking.

The next day they worked on sparing, knives, and shooting at a moving target. He knew it’d been a month since the last time he’d seen her do any of those things, but she got all of the moving targets this time without any problems. It’d gotten easy for her. She was still terrible at hitting a target with knives, but now he wondered if Rachel had gotten that skill in their separation and this was the best that Beth would get at it. He didn’t know why, because throwing a knife shouldn’t have anything to do with your soul, but in the off chance it did, he didn’t criticize her much and kept the Rachel thing to himself. They seemed to have come to some sort of an understanding that Rachel was something neither would bring up, the same way they didn’t bring up Hell for him, and he was more than okay with that. They moved to sparring after lunch, and he could tell she had improved with that too. Maybe not as much as the shooting, but she was definitely better.

After the first hour, she stopped him to get water and said, “Dean, you’re going too easy on me.” He didn’t think he was, but she said, “Those vampires didn’t pull punches with Ellen and Bobby. Besides . . . Ivan hits me a lot harder than you are. He says it’s the best way for me to learn not to get hit.” _Sounds like he graduated from the John Winchester School of Training. I’m not my Dad._ He didn’t answer and instead knocked her legs out from under her. After that he started drilling into her that she couldn’t let her guard down. That was more important than him following through on all of his punches.

After dinner and before he was going to teach her how to play poker, Dean asked her how Ivan had been training her. She told him that Ivan would spend the last half hour of a session putting her in a new situation and showing her how to get out of it. They’d practice it again at the start of their next session, and then Ivan would take the kid gloves off for their training in the middle and wouldn’t do anything that had anything to do with what she’d learned that day . . . it’d usually require her to combine different moves Ivan had already taught her. The idea was to get her to be fast enough that she didn’t have to think about it, but she had to know the moves first. That was fair. He guessed it’d been so long since he’d learned any of that stuff that he just knew what to do. He could take it from here, but Ivan might’ve been the best person to teach her at the start, and to be honest, because Ivan was in the Russian military, some her moves were new for him . . . kind of made sparring more fun than having someone that could match him move for move.

He had wanted to know how Ivan had taught her, but he’d also been trying to catch her off guard. She was looking in one of the desks in the living room for something they could use as currency for poker, so she hadn’t been expecting it, but she did adjust in time to bring him down too and nailed him in the stomach as hard as she could with her elbow as soon as he landed next to her. That was something he hadn’t been expecting, so she mocked him for not being ready before moving to get up, and he automatically brought her down again before he pinned her and shouted, “Hey, this isn’t a game! You can’t afford to be caught off guard. My brother wants to kill you! You need to be ready at any time for him or anything else that’s out there. How the fuck can you not know this?” 

“I don’t think I want to train with you anymore. I’ll get the rest on my own, thanks.” She hadn’t sounded pissed off. She’d just said it and then looked away from him. _Did she just fire me?_ He hadn’t expected that. It felt like she was the only friend he had right now, and he’d lost too many people in his life to lose any more. But he didn’t want to lose her because he was a dick either.

He got her to look at him again and said, “This is the life, Beth. There’s downtime, but not really. What if I’m not around or something happens to me that you don’t know about when I leave the room? You can’t let your guard down, even around me, if it means protecting yourself.”

“You’re not asking me to protect myself from anything else when you do it. You’re asking me to protect myself from you. I knew you were there. I just didn’t expect you to attack me. I don’t see you as a threat.” _She’s talking to me. Does that mean we’re all right?_

“What if it’s a shifter, or I’m possessed?”

She studied him and said, “So, in this hypothetical instance of you leaving the room and either being duplicated by a shifter or possessed . . . Does that mean that you were unprepared for it?”

He masked his uncertainty over whether they were all right with a cocky grin and responded, “No, if that happened, I’d be ready. I’d just be outnumbered, which means you’d have to be even more ready for whatever it was.” She gave him a small smile. _That’s a good sign. I haven’t ruined everything, right?_

“We can try it again tomorrow. I guess I’ll have to learn it, so I can be ready when ninja monsters and demons bring you down in the other room without me knowing . . . I’ll pretend like you’re . . . John Hurt in the chestbuster scene, except with a ninja baby alien. He looked sick, but fine, until he wasn’t.” She was done talking about this, but at least she rehired him, and she’d try tomorrow, which was what he’d wanted.

He realized then how close he’d gotten to her. ‘Just a few more inches,’ was somewhere in the back of his mind, and that same part of his mind told him that she hadn’t told him to back off yet. He held himself there for a couple of seconds before looking down at her lips. He couldn’t do this . . . He wasn’t right for her. He didn’t have anything to offer. He was damaged-goods. He’d found a way to screw up every relationship he’d ever had, whether it was with women or his own family . . . That’s all this was. His way of ruining what he had with her . . . And it’s not like he ever went to college. He’d just gotten out of Hell for fuck’s sake. No woman in her right mind would want any piece of that. He had to protect her from himself and from everything else that was in those prophecies. He didn’t buy into the whole predestination thing, but if there was even a chance the prophecies were right, and something happened to her because of it, he wouldn’t allow it, so he backpedaled and released her before coughing out, “Give me some credit. I wouldn’t let one of those face sucker bitches near me. You ready to play some poker?”

Watching her shuffle, he thought that if it wasn’t for him being fucked up, he and Beth could be good together . . . No, he couldn’t let himself think of her like that . . . He started comparing her to Rachel instead to take his mind off of it. Beth was the comfort over fashion type with her bootcut jeans and her fitted, but half a size too big zip-up-hoodies, sweaters, flannels and long sleeve t-shirts. Her eyes went a little grayer when she was thinking and a lot grayer when she was happy, like now . . . Rachel’s never did that. Beth didn’t wear makeup, so she had a natural look, but it worked for her . . . even her hair being up in that messy ponytail made her look hot . . . She was the girl next door, and he’d always kinda wanted that . . . no, he couldn’t let himself have that, and he needed to play his hand cuz he was getting distracted . . . She never wore dresses or skirts, but Rachel had been all short skirts in their downtown time and tight leather on a hunt to show off her ass. She used to say that she had to make up for being small chested by showing off her assets, and she’d had a great ass. She wore make-up and had crazy hair and polished nails. Rachel had been more like a rocker/biker chick and put in a lot of time and effort into her looks every day, and she used them to get as many men as she could whether she was with him or not . . . and that’d meant that he hadn’t been a saint when they were together either, but he didn’t think it’d be like that with Beth. He’d already passed up at least one sure thing with Anna, because it wouldn’t have felt right, and he and Beth weren’t even together . . . He and Beth weren’t ever gonna be together either . . . He needed to not pass up the next thing, or it meant he was in trouble here.

What were some of her negatives? One definite one was that sometimes she seemed really naïve, and he’d say that about half the time it was an act, but the other half . . . not so much. Other times, she felt older than him, and it was like she was the one taking care of him. She had emotions like anyone else, but they were a little muted unless she was smiling or laughing. Beth laughed a lot more than Rachel ever did, and her smile was one of the best things about her. She was more fun to be around than Rachel had been.

She was really smart, and she had that sometimes-Irish accent when she was annoyed and would occasionally slip into Russian without realizing it when she was really angry. She’d done that a few times today when she was trying to throw knives, and when it didn’t come out English, or Russian, it was in Spanish. She claimed not to be fluent in Russian or Spanish, but she sure sounded like she was, and even if she wasn't, she was at least fluent in swearing in lots of languages. Swearing or not, the point was that she knew all these languages he didn’t. She’d been made to believe she was a world traveler, and that was another thing that put him at a disadvantage compared to her.

Rachel, like him, hadn’t had the opportunities that Beth had. He and Rachel had lived similar lives and were able to connect on that and Sam. Rachel could be cruel to those she knew or random strangers, but she’d always been good to Sam. And she’d had a way about her that drew people in no matter what she said or did. She used to love having all the attention in a room on her. She led with her emotions . . . not necessarily a bad thing, but she did let her anger be unleashed on a pretty regular basis. She could be selfish on a lot of things and overly giving on others. She was tight lipped on anything important. When she was upset, she would shut down on him and talk to anyone else, but when she was pissed off, she’d let him know it, and he didn’t have to be what she was pissed off about for her to pick a fight with him, whereas Beth rambled when she didn’t want to talk about something with him or pretty much whenever. She was doing it right now, and she never did that with anyone else. He and Beth didn’t fight. She got him. Rachel never did.


	17. Always the Bearer of Bad News

We’d been at the cabin for 2 weeks, and I had no idea what Dean was still doing here. I could tell that he was climbing the walls. Our routine was mind-numbing for me too, so maybe I wanted to get out of here as much as he did. We’d finished our tree-monster chopping drill and were heading into town to grab some food when I turned to him and said, “It’s alright if you want to go. I’m sure Sam has had time to cool down. He’s probably looking for you, not me.” I knew being on the road with his brother is where he really wanted to be, but for some reason, he wasn’t letting himself do that.

“Have you tried calling Bobby? He probably knows where Sam’s head is.” It’s hard to have a conversation with someone when you’re the only one talking. He shut down every time I brought up leaving this place or Sam. “Besides, I’m getting kind of tired of playing Rapunzel locked away in the tower,” I finally sighed before looking back out the window.

Back at the cabin and a few beers later, we were playing poker and doing our nightly lore drill. He’d ask me about a type of monster, and I’d tell him what I knew. If I didn’t know what it was, he’d fill me in on it. It was something to do to pass the time. It was educational for me, and it let him know whether or not he’d end up facing whatever it was sometime in the future if he hadn’t hunted one yet. We’d already gone over a couple of different monsters, but when Dean said ghouls, I froze. More words and phrases were shouting out at me than normal. It’s what happened just before I got the right question about the Apocalypse. I’d become more tuned into things like this in the last month and a half. Dean said, “Call,” not having noticed my hesitation yet. I lost the hand again. He said I had a tell, but wouldn’t tell me what it was, so I almost always lost. I still hadn’t answered about ghouls, so he started to tell me what they were, but I stopped him by saying, “There’s more to this one, like Lucifer type more, I think.”

He snorted and dealt the next hand. “I think there’s something off with your spidey senses. Why would ghouls have anything to do with Lucifer?” That was a good question even though he didn’t mean for it to be. Now that I paid more attention to what the little voice in the back of my head told me when I was about to unlock a memory, I knew the basic message of what I’d say before I said it. It let me know whether or not I should start talking, and talking is what brought more details out. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. I could choose not to answer. It was going to be hard for him to hear. No. If he was trying not to lie to me, I couldn’t lie to him.

I focused all of my attention at the cards in my hands and rushed through this as fast as I could. “Ghouls normally eat the flesh of the dead, and they can transform into the form of their last meal. A head shot, blow to the head, or decapitation will get rid of them . . . And I know that they’re what will kill your half-brother Adam Milligan in Minnesota soon, like in a few months . . . Your dad had another son with a woman he met on a hunt for ghouls in 1990. He didn’t meet Adam until Adam was 12, and your dad kept him out of the hunting life completely. The ghoul your dad killed back then had two children, and they’ve spent all this time plotting to get back at him. They’ve been moving from place to place, so they aren’t back in the same town as Adam yet. At least I don’t think they are, and they probably haven’t moved on to fresh kills yet, so they’ll be hard to find. The cop who worked the case with your Dad, ummm . . . Joe something, is the first one they’ll kill in town. Then they’ll kill Adam and his mom, Kate, because they want to lure John back by pretending to be Adam. And Adam is important for The Apocalypse later. It’s got something to do with resurrection and Michael. I just can’t remember more than that at the moment . . . maybe because if we stop Lucifer from getting out of his cage, it won’t matter. Anyway, you have a half-brother, and there will be ghouls hunting him, and he’s definitely not prepared to defend himself from anything like that.”

I glanced at him, and he looked pissed off. It hit too close to home. Family was his everything. He’d want to find and save his own flesh and blood, but he also wouldn’t be able to accept that his Dad had kept something so monumental from him for so long. I didn’t know what to say, so I got up and hid in the kitchen under the pretense of grabbing another beer. While I was in there, I heard him move around the house and didn’t come back until I heard the front door slam shut 5 minutes later. _I’m such an insensitive cow . . . I suck at giving bad news._

Dean had taken all of his stuff with him when he left. I knew he needed time to blow off steam or verify what I’d told him or both, but after the first three days, I started to wonder if he’d left for good. Maybe he went to go get Sam, and they were hunting the ghouls together to save their brother. I hoped that meant they’d be able to heal whatever was broken between them, but started to feel a little sorry for myself. I had no Dean. No Bobby. No anybody anymore.

I decided that I’d give Dean until tomorrow morning to come back, and then I would head out on my own. I decided that 4 days ago, but still stayed to continue my chopping and target practice. Maybe I wasn’t ready to give up on him just yet, but tomorrow I was definitely going. I’d locked my bedroom door to keep me from going in there, getting cozy, and changing my mind; slept on the couch; and had my bags next to me, so all I’d have to do was brush my teeth and go. And the next morning, that’s what I did. I didn’t really know where I was going to go, but I thought a town big enough to have a library where I could use the Internet would be a good place to start.

I had a 10-mile walk to get to the nearest very small town, and I didn’t know if they would have a bus going somewhere else, but if they didn’t, I’d have no trouble stealing a car. It’s not like I had a record. At least, I didn’t think I did. I wondered if Rachel did or if I had her fingerprints. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to hitchhike. I never liked the idea of it in my fake life, and now I lived in a world that had real monsters on top of the human monsters.

I was 2 miles away from town and had already turned down lifts from a couple of men. They were probably nice, but I was striking out on my own, so I couldn’t trust anyone. I heard another car pull up beside me and kept on walking. Ignoring the last one had worked with little to no effort on my part. Surprisingly, there was a lot of traffic for a backwoods road. I wished there wasn’t. “Where’re you headin’?” _Damnit._

“I appreciate it, but I’m alright. I don’t –“ I stopped when I turned to look at the driver and saw that it was Dean. “Oh . . . Uh, I was just heading into town. Thought I might steal a car . . . see where the road takes me.”

“Get in?” He looked as unsure as I felt. When I didn’t immediately walk around to jump in, he said, “Unless you still want to go?” This is awkward.

“No, I, uh, I didn’t think you were coming back. If you are, then I’ll go with you.” We didn’t talk in the car. He must’ve been to the cabin first from the looks of things when we walked through the door. Everything was where it should be, but it was in disarray, like papers were now scattered around the place and my bedroom door had been kicked open. I looked at the splintered wood in the frame, and all he said was, “You didn’t leave a note,” as he passed me on the way to his room.

I stayed in my room most of the day, because I hate awkward situations if they can be avoided. I felt like I was justified in thinking he wasn’t coming back and that any sane person would have left a place in the middle of nowhere if they’d been stranded there alone long before I did, but I also felt like I was responsible for him having to get away in the first place. I should have told him in a better way, or I shouldn’t have run into the kitchen to hide after I told him. I was torn with what I wanted to say or do now that he was back, so I said and did nothing. I could be such a coward sometimes.

Later that evening there was a knock on my door. “I found us a hunt. We need to leave soon, so get your stuff, and we’ll go.” _So, now we’re going on a hunt?_ How were we supposed to hunt if things were too awkward between us to talk? We drove long into the night and part of the next morning before stopping at a rundown motel somewhere in Pennsylvania. Dropping our things in the room, I went to get ready for bed.

By the time he had showered and come back into the room, I’d decided that I was done living in the silence and said the first thing to him since the car ride that morning, “So, what’s the case?”

He threw me a file from his bag, and I started to read through it. The further into it I got, the more impressed I was. I hadn’t thought it would be possible to track them down. There was a clear path leading from Windom, Minnesota to the town where we were staying. The file had county and city records as well as news clippings dating back almost 20 years. Dean sat next to me to look at it over my shoulder, so I looked at him and said, “You found them?” He flashed me a quick smile and filled me in on how.


	18. Another Year, Another Christmas . . . But Not Really

Dean hadn’t intended on being gone for over a week when he left. After what she’d said, “Maybe Sammy was right about her,” started running through his head. He’d had to get out of there before he said something he’d regret. There was no way that he had a brother he didn’t know about. His Dad may have said and done a lot of shit over the years, but his Dad wouldn’t have done that. She had to be wrong.

When he’d gotten a good distance away from the house, he’d parked alongside the road, so he could flip through his Dad’s journal. In it, he found a hunt for ghouls in early 1990. There were pages missing. It was the first knock back for him, but he’d needed more proof, so he found a library the next day and started researching Adam and Kate Milligan. They were real, and they lived in Windom the way Beth said. Bodies did start going missing in Windom in 1990, roughly 9 months before Adam was born, and the cop on the case won awards for finding the missing corpses. His name was Joe Barton. Everything added up.

He spent the rest of the week researching cemeteries in the area in and around Windom for missing corpses and body mutilations before broadening his search area. Eventually he caught a break. There’d been a half missing corpse found half a state away not long after his Dad would have left Windom. From old crime scene photos, Dean could tell it was the work of ghouls, and from there he was able to piece together which way they’d gone. They were young, and they didn’t stay in one place for very long, so they didn’t finish off entire bodies. As they got bigger, fewer remains were left behind. He’d have lost them completely when they stopped leaving anything behind, if he hadn’t realized that they were following a path of cemeteries that had been hit 30 years before, cemeteries that he bet their father must have taken them to or told them about when they were young.

Looking at records from a couple of decades ago, he noticed a zigzag pattern that fit with more recent hits for missing corpses and found their most recent buffet in Ohio. If he was right, that meant they should be in this town in Pennsylvania now or soon. “Why’d you come back to get me? You could have done this one on your own.”

To make her smile, he told her that he'd wanted to see if her new training was paying off, and then he told her that she’d been the one to put him onto the case, so he wanted her there to help him finish it. That wasn't entirely true, but it was true enough and sounded better than saying it was because he’d been too chickenshit to call this last week. He was the one who left, so it had been his call to make, but he hadn’t been sure she’d answer because of the way he’d left and because of the things he’d thought about her before he left that she had to have known he was thinking, or she wouldn’t have bolted for the kitchen. He couldn't make the call, but he could maybe make things right in person if he found her. He could always track the ghouls down again before they got to Windom, but the colder her trail got, the harder she'd be to find. He'd actually thought she was long gone before he even pulled up to the cabin, but had hoped for a note or a clue as to where she'd gone. He hadn't found any and figured that maybe someone in town had seen her or was at least missing a car, so that's where he'd been heading when he saw her. He didn’t know why she’d stayed as long as she did, but he was relieved she had even though things had been awkward as hell between them until now.

They found where the ghouls were hiding out the next night. It was an old caretaker’s shack just outside of a cemetery that had been hit 25 years ago. The place looked forgotten, like it hadn’t seen anyone in well over 2 decades. It was falling down, but something could still live here. There was a tunnel going from one of the mausoleums to just outside of the shack. It’d make getting in and out of the cemetery without anyone seeing the ghouls easy. Dean had Beth stand guard while he had a quick peek inside a couple of old musty coffins in the room in the back. One of them had a body that was nearly consumed, but the other was empty. The ghouls must still been in the area.

Dean decided that they’d wait until they saw the ghouls enter the shack. Then Dean would go in after them by himself, and Beth would go to the mausoleum in case one got away from him. “Stay there until I come to get you.” She was going to argue with him, but he cut her off before she could. “You said you’d follow my lead.” She rolled her eyes, so he added that if she didn’t go watch the mausoleum; she could go sit in the car, because she wasn’t going into their lair with him. She finally said fine and gave him a look that said she wasn’t happy, but when the ghouls came to the shack, she went to the mausoleum like he wanted.

When the ghouls showed up, they weren’t expecting him, but that didn’t mean they made it easy. It was a bitch dealing with 2 without Sam being there. At one point, Dean came so close to being able to finish the female off, but then the male got off the floor and lunged at him, so he had to focus on that one. While he was doing that, the female threw an arm around his neck to try and choke him out, and he got out of the female’s hold, but it was just in time for the male to pick Dean up by the front of his jacket, slam him into a wall, claw through his chest to slow him down, and then throw him across the shack. 

The male made his way over to Dean, who was struggling to get up, and told his sister to go, but she was using the fucking tunnel as her escape route. Dean hadn’t actually thought they’d go out that way. He needed to put this ghoul down and get to the mausoleum before the other ghoul did. Easier said than done. He had to split his attention between blocking, taking the hits he couldn’t block, and finding either his damn gun or machete, both of which he’d dropped. As soon as he found his gun, he grabbed the ghoul’s foot to stop it from kicking him in the ribs, twisted the foot to dislocate the knee, and then kicked the ghoul’s other leg out from under it to bring it down to his level, so he could take a headshot from close range. The ghoul stopped moving, but Dean shot it a few more times to make sure its head was mostly gone before looking around for the nearest thing he could use to help him get off the ground. _How much time did that take?_

Stumbling to the front of the shack, Dean kept going until he got to the cemetery fence, hopped it as fast as he could, which wasn’t all that fast, and made it to the mausoleum. Beth was facing him, so she could keep an eye on the grate and the exit. Her gun was aimed at the grate near her feet, but at the sound of him slumping against the door, she took her eyes off the grate, and her aim went to him. It distracted her just long enough for the ghoul to take advantage of it. It launched itself up through the gate, made her drop her gun onto the sarcophagus, and turned her into a human shield. Beth looked . . . well, she looked annoyed more than anything else.

Dean didn’t have a clean shot. He shook his head to let Beth know he couldn’t take the shot, and she sighed, like that’s what she’d thought. The ghoul was bitching about how Dean had killed her brother, and he kept the ghoul’s focus on him by saying he was just finishing the job his Dad started with her father. When the ghoul got into the right position, Beth kicked back hard against the wall next to the door, forcing she and the ghoul to fly back into the sarcophagus. The ghoul finally let Beth go as they hit the ground, and Beth rolled on top of it, pulled a second gun, and took the headshot before it could do anything to her. _Nice gun. Where’d she get that?_ Beth took a couple more shots to be sure, and then started searching for her other gun. Dean said, “Other side of the crypt,” before tiredly nodding his head in the direction it’d gone.

Beth tucked both her guns away and came over to wrap her arm around Dean’s waist, so he could lean on her on their way back to the car. “Thought you were supposed to be getting some machete practice in.”

She smirked and then looked up at him before saying, “See, I thought you wanted me to practice standing around doing nothing.” Yeah, all right. He still didn’t want her to hunt.

“Gotta take my chances while I still can.” When she started hunting on her own, he wouldn’t have a say in it.

“Hey, where’d you get this?” Dean asked while pulling her new gun to have a look at it.

“I bought it. It’s mine.” Something about the way she said it made him laugh.

“I can see that . . . You think I’m gonna take it?”

She shook her head. “No, I mean it’s mine, like my tranq gun is mine. It’s not a hand-me-down from you or Bobby.”

“Why haven’t I seen it until now?”

She held onto him a little tighter when he stumbled and then said, “If everyone knew I had it, it wouldn’t be a useful back up, would it?" He asked her why it was a back up, and she said, “I didn’t want to make you feel bad by making your gun the back up.”

He smiled in response before asking, “What tranq gun?” She told him about it, and he thought that wasn’t a bad idea. “It was faster than the crossbow?”

“Yeah, I had 5 down before Jo had 3 down, and it’s quieter than the crossbow.” You could use it for all kinds of things. The ammo they used now took a while to make, so adding another type wasn’t a problem as long as it worked. He might get one himself.

‘ _I was right_ ,’ he thought looking in the mirror. The wound looked worse in the dark than it actually was. He could just about get by without needing stitches. Few butterfly bandages, and he’d be fine. Beth had wanted to take care of it for him, but the last thing he needed were her hands on his chest even if it was completely innocent to her . . . He needed to go back and be with Sam. If he didn’t, then he didn’t know where he might try to take this. Even now, half of him wanted to go out there and . . . no, he needed to stop, and focus on something else, like what he did wrong on this hunt. 

When he came back out of the bathroom, Beth asked if he was okay. “Yeah, most of the blood was from that ghoul,” he answered distractedly, while going for a slice of pizza and a beer on the table. “You did a good job tonight.”

She bowed her head and shook her head as he sat next to her on her bed. “That’s not true. I know I fucked up. And it was more than a little embarrassing to be picked up like that.” Meh, the brother ghoul picked him up.

“Listen you’re alright, I’m alright. We killed the monsters before they could kill Adam. I think it was a win.”

“You know Christmas is coming up in a few days.” He’d forgotten all about Christmas. _Is she asking for a present?_ “You know it’s easier to blend into crowds at Christmas. Might be a good time to check Adam out, if you want,” she suggested before getting up to take a shower. _That’s worse than fishing for a present._ Did he want to meet Adam? He already had one brother, and they weren’t on the best of terms. Did he really want to see what he and Sam could have been like with minimal input from their dad and no hunting? Not really, but Adam was family, and the kid didn’t have to know who he was. He could swing by sometimes to check on Adam and make sure nothing else came after him. Look out for him from a distance.

Two days later, it was Christmas Eve, and Dean and Beth were parked outside of a two-story house on a normal road in a normal town. He had a brother in that house. Dean had actually talked to him earlier in the day when he’d been in an electronics store pretending to be looking at the same thing as Adam. They’d talked a lot more than he’d planned on talking. At first Dean had thought Adam was just like Sam with the whole college thing, but then Adam started talking about cars. They talked about that for a while and somehow went from that to Westerns, and the kid knew his Westerns. After that Dean decided that maybe Adam was a little like both of them. He wished he could tell Sam about this kid. Maybe he’d be able to tell him when this whole Ruby thing had blown over. 

“Do you think you’ll ever tell him he has two older brothers,” Beth asked when Dean pulled away from the curb.

“No. Dad was right to keep him away from this life. At least one of us can have the chance to be normal.” Adam's Mom had done a good job with him. He'd be fine.

When they got to their room, Beth was talking to him, but he wasn’t listening. He was too busy thinking about . . . everything. He wondered what Sam was doing and where he was. He hoped to god Ruby was dead, but his luck wasn’t that good. How many seals were left? What would Sam have thought of Adam? Beth asked him something, and he missed it. “What?”

“Just wondering if you wanted your present tonight or tomorrow.” _Oh. Right._

“We can do it tonight if you want,” he answered, while going to his bag and grabbing a box.

“Okay, here,” she said handing him a bag. She opened her gift first and didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, I . . . It’s not a big deal. It has The Pixies and Joy Division on it. I know you’ve got their t-shirts, so I figured you like them. If you don’t want it, I can take it back.” It was an iPod. It had nothing to do with the job. He didn’t want everything in her life to revolve around hunting.

She hadn’t said anything in a while, and he was starting to think she hated it. When she looked up at him, she told him to give back her present that she’d given him, and she’d get him something else. “Not a chance.” He looked in the bag, and it looked like she got him two presents. He opened one box and then the other. These were high quality. _How much does she make at Yuri’s?_ “You got me amulets?”

She stood up to look at them and said, “Bobby gave me a book. It’s full of sigils. I used it to have these made today, but I don’t even know if they’ll work. They’re an experiment. This one might keep shapeshifters from being able to duplicate you. It should be on a door to keep them from coming inside a room, but even if it doesn’t work for that, I’ll know you’re you if you have it, because it’s silver. The other one is supposed to let you know if you’re near someone who’s practiced dark magic recently. I know you hate witches, so I thought this would help you suss them out faster on a hunt . . . if it works.”

“And now you want me to be copied by ninja shifters and deal with witches longer? Must have really hated what I got you,” he said with a smirk.

She looked at the amulets again and said, “No, I just . . . I thought . . . well your present for me was personal and had nothing to do with hunting, and . . . that makes it so much better than what I got you that I thought -” At that he leaned down and covered her lips with his. She flinched at the unexpected invasion of her space before he felt her relax to return the kiss. Knowing he had her approval, he stuffed the amulets in his pocket and moved his hands to her waist to cautiously meet her tongue with his. _What am I doing?_ He needed to stop this, but when she slid her hands up his chest to the back of his shoulders and pulled him closer, he deepened the kiss before pushing her back into the wall.

A few minutes later, he pulled back to catch some air and get his bearings back. He was tempted to keep going, see where this went . . . he leaned towards her again . . . _No, I can’t._ That had been a mistake . . . Now he wanted more, and knew for a fact that she was interested, and that made walking away harder. And what was with that thing that happened the longer they touched? It was tied to the slight vibration that happened when their tongues met. It felt good and gave him a jolt of happiness or peace . . . It reminded him of something else, but he couldn’t remember what had caused it. He just knew it was something he missed. “Have we . . . “

She was watching him and breathed out, “I don’t know.” She obviously knew what he meant. She felt it too . . . The only way he could describe the way it made him feel was . . . well, it felt like coming home. Whatever it was, it probably meant Cas was right.

He should stop whatever this was now before it went any further, so he backed away and said, “Merry Christmas Beth,” before getting in his bed and turning out his light.


	19. Saying Goodbye For the Holidays

_What the hell was that? What am I supposed to do now? Maybe start with turning out the lights?_ I did that and then found my way to my bed. Things were going so well, and now my hormones had to be brought into the mix? I wasn’t blind to his attractiveness, but I generally tried to ignore it. Dean was my best friend, the only friend I’d ever had if everyone else hadn’t been real. He was someone I trusted. I liked having fun with him. He was someone I could talk to about anything. I wanted to protect him and spend time with him, but as anything other than that?

I didn’t think I was his type, not with what I’d heard about Rachel. Maybe that was why it happened? She and I looked similar, right? Except I didn’t hold a candle to her based on what everyone else always said. Maybe it would make him change his mind about having me around if he’d been hoping that I would be able to take her place and something like this made him realize I wouldn’t. 

Things had been going great between us the last few days. I didn’t want things to change. Maybe if I pretended like it hadn’t happened or that it was a Christmas thing or that it happened because he was upset about Sam and Adam, I’d stop being so hyperaware of him sleeping in the next bed. That’s what I needed to do. Lock it away and pretend like it hadn’t changed anything. I could do that if he could. With those thoughts in mind, I settled in and tried to fall asleep.

The next morning, I got up early, grabbed some cash in case I found a place that was open, and snuck out for my run. I went all the way over to the other side of town where I found a small convenience store that was open 365 days a year. I got some water for me, coffee for Dean, oil for the Impala, and doughnuts. Merry Christmas . . . Maybe I could give Dean something more personal, like the thing he’d given me. On the way back to the motel, I dialed Bobby’s house, and it almost rang out before he picked up.

Before he even had a chance to say anything, I called out, “Merry Christmas Bobby!” My greeting was genuine, but there was another reason that I was calling. I suspected that he knew where Sam was. I wouldn’t ask that question, but if I set it up so Dean had to talk to him, I bet Bobby would tell him where Sam was whether Dean asked or not. I just had to get the ball rolling.

“Elsbeth, is that you? Where’s Dean?” _Here we go._

“He’s back at the motel sleeping. Do you want me to have him ring you when I get back?” _Time to go back to Sam, Dean._

“Yeah have him give me a call. Tell him it’s important, and Merry Christmas Elsbeth.” When I got back, I put the food on the table, told Dean that Bobby had something important to tell him, and ran into the shower before he could process what I’d said.

When I got out, Dean was packing and said that Bobby told him that Ruby was still alive, so Sam wasn’t as pissed off as he would’ve been if she’d died. In fact, Sam was at Bobby’s right now, and he had a hunt all lined up if Dean wanted to join him. There was a witch using human sacrifices every year at New Year’s, so they were on a tight schedule if they wanted to get there, find the witch, and kill it before it could kill more people.

Even if Ruby wasn’t dead, Dean thought it was best if I went back to the cabin and stayed off of Sam’s radar a little longer. That meant no going to Bobby’s. Dean said he’d call and keep me updated when he could, but planned on being back to check on me in 3 weeks tops. “I probably won’t be there in 3 weeks, Dean.” He stopped packing and asked me to hold off on hunting a little longer. “I’ll give you a month.” I didn’t want to wait anymore. I needed to start finding my own way and this was it, not living indefinitely as a hermit in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. I wouldn’t take any hunts I couldn’t handle, so I told Dean that to try and put his mind at ease.

“6 months?” _And do what in the meantime?_

“6 weeks. 6 months. 6 years. Does it really matter? It’ll never be long enough for you.”

He waited a beat before saying, “I don’t know. 6 years sounds pretty good.” _Right._

“So start when I’m 35?”

Dean shrugged and said, “Hey, you thought you were 35 until about 2 months ago.” That was true.

“Yeah, but now I have new lease on life . . . a second chance. I know you don’t think it’ll be a very long 2nd chance if I’m a hunter, but I could fall through the ice out on the lake tomorrow and be just as dead. 6 weeks. Final offer.” 

Dean slumped, held his hand out, and said, “Shake on it?”

I looked at his hand. “Don’t you just shake hands when you greet someone in the real world?” He started to look awkward at the prospect of explaining a handshake deal to me, and I smiled at him falling for it again before I took his hand and said, “Okay, but one of these days you’re going to figure out that if I tell you I’ll do something, I’ll do it. My word is my bond . . . with you. Not so much people I’m conning, which is pretty much everyone else.” He smiled and took his hand back before he asked if I was ready to go. “Not even close. I just got out of the shower. Give me 10 minutes . . . oh, and here’s the Impala’s Christmas present.” I handed him the oil I knew he used and went off to get packed.

After helping me to the cabin with my bags and supplies, Dean paused at the door and asked if I was going to be okay. He didn’t need to worry about me, so that’s what I told him. I was glad he was going to be with his brother. They needed each other. Just before he opened the driver’s side door, he stopped again and looked down at one of the amulets I’d given him before saying that he’d let me know if it worked, and with that, he was gone.


	20. Repairing Bridges

Sam stood in the doorway to the kitchen and listened to Bobby talk to his brother over the phone. When Bobby had said Dean would be calling, Sam had told him to tell Dean about the job he was looking into in California. It was his way of offering an olive branch to Dean.

He hadn’t meant the things he’d said to Dean in the barn that night. He had survived without Dean while Dean was in Hell, but he hadn’t wanted to. He’d actually done everything in his power not to survive with suicidal case after suicidal case. He’d regretted saying that and telling Dean to go and not look back as soon as he heard the Impala rumble to life and drive away.

He may not have meant the things he’d said to Dean, but he’d said them for a reason. He’d been hurt that Dean betrayed him. They’d had a deal, and he’d thought that he was making strides in getting Dean to see that Ruby wasn’t so bad. He’d felt betrayed on Ruby’s behalf too. She’d just gone through great lengths to help he and Dean out of a sticky situation, and to think that she was almost repaid for it with a knife to the chest was unbelievable. He couldn’t just stand there and watch her die without doing something to stop it, and afterwards, he was obliged to take care of her.

Ruby still wasn’t much better than 50%, but at least she was alive. He figured that finding her somewhere safe to go and helping her get her strength back was the least he could do for her after everything she’d done for him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about her. Sometimes he hated her for the demon she was, and he hated himself for being in the same room as her, let alone some of the things they did together. Other times, he felt like she was the only thing in this universe that understood him and what he was going through. It hadn’t started out that way, but he trusted her, and she helped him any time he needed.

Having to wait for Ruby to heal even a little meant that by the time Sam was able to start looking for Dean, his brother’s trail had gone cold, and Sam found out just how far off the grid Dean could go when he didn’t want to be found. It made him appreciate how unwaveringly Dean had stayed with him all these years, because if Dean had ever really wanted to leave, there’s no way Sam would’ve ever been able to find him again. In all honesty, Sam had started to think that’s what’d happened. 

Sam thought about why his brother had disappeared. It wasn’t just because he’d told Dean to go. It was the threat Sam had made against Elsbeth. He’d meant what he’d said about killing her at the time, and if Ruby had died, he probably would have if he could’ve found her. Now, he didn’t know what he’d do if he saw her again. He was sure she was behind the attempt on Ruby’s life, but if it meant this much to Dean, he’d hold off on getting any kind of justice for Ruby. He didn’t want to push Dean any further away. He would never admit it, because Dean would make fun of him, but he missed his brother. 

Dean had been the one constant in Sam’s life, and after losing Jess and then his Dad, Sam found that he relied on Dean, as much if not more, than he had growing up. No matter what he did, Sam couldn’t get away from hunting. He understood that now, and as long as he was a hunter, he wanted his brother by his side. That’s why he’d started going to Bobby’s once a week in between checking into places Dean might’ve gone. He’d thought that if anyone knew where Dean was, it’d be Bobby. Unfortunately, Bobby hadn’t had known anything any of the times Sam had visited . . . until today.

When Bobby was done talking to Dean, Sam expected him to say that Dean had given the hunt a pass. He felt an enormous amount of relief when Bobby said Dean would be there in a day or so. Sam wondered if Dean would be bringing Elsbeth and what sort of tension that would create. After thinking about it, he didn’t think she’d be with his brother. Dean had probably stashed her somewhere far from him.

The next day, Sam heard the sound of the Impala pulling into the yard and found that he didn’t want to be there anymore. He didn’t know how he was going to face his brother after everything that had been said and done. He wanted this to be a fresh start, a way for them to reconnect, but at the same time he could feel the same old resentments that he’d forgotten start to creep in beyond his control. Even so, all of the tension he was feeling in the build-up to seeing his brother again vanished as soon as Dean came through Bobby’s door as seemingly carefree as always saying, “Hey Sammy, you ready to hit the road?”

They wrapped up the first case pretty fast. Every year for 15 years, 2 victims from high-end parts of the city had gone missing 2 days before New Year’s Eve. None of them were ever seen again until last year when the body of one washed up on shore with markings associated with the occult etched into it. To Sam, that said they were dealing with a witch, and he was right. The witch turned out to be the CEO of a Fortune-500 company who was sacrificing well off, but not influential people, to ensure a higher return for the next year’s profits. Finishing the case had meant a high profile person going missing, but Sam and his brother were good at their job and knew how to cover their tracks.

The highlight of the case had been when they’d gone to the CEO’s office for the first time. They were in the CEOs office, acting like Feds, and trying to gain access to employee records for the last 15 years. They’d known that however loosely the ties were, the company was the common denominator between all of the victims, so it seemed the best place to start. After they’d shaken the CEOs hand, Sam heard his brother turn around and mutter, “Sonofabitch,” and then had to cover for Dean’s bizarre behavior as Dean started fidgeting and went over to look out of one of the windows.

Dean had been unusually preoccupied with looking at the view or maybe it was the flowers in one of the vases on the windowsill. He’d also been overly demanding when the CEO started making calls to lawyers about what could and could not be released. After the calls to the lawyers, it took the CEO another 10 minutes to call the various people in human resources to send up specific files. It wasn’t until the receptionist had come in to hand them the files and said, “Oh, looks like you dropped something on your shirt, agent,” to Dean that Sam had noticed that there was a big scorch mark on his brother’s dress shirt.

Before Sam could comment on it, Dean hurried them out of the building and then told Sam that the CEO was their guy. Sam wasn’t convinced. The guy seemed all right, but then Dean explained that he had an amulet on when they went in that was supposed to let him know when he was in the presence of someone who had used dark magic recently. Dean’d had to turn around to take it off after shaking the CEO’s hand, because it had begun to burn through his dress shirt. That’s when he put it in the vase by the window to cool it off, but then the water started to boil towards the end of the CEOs calls. Dean wouldn’t have been able to explain boiling water in a vase full of flowers, so he’d had to put the amulet back in his jacket pocket, which then began to burn him again. That's why he'd acted like a weirdo the whole time.

Sam didn’t know where Dean had gotten the amulet, but he’d thought it was freakin’ hilarious and now his brother had to get a new suit. Finally, getting that Dean was not amused, Sam calmed himself down and said, “Maybe next time, we could find some way of wrapping it up and taking it in without you being branded. Not a bad idea though,” and Dean irritatedly responded, “Maybe next time you can carry it.”

After that case, they were on the road together for about 5 weeks and finished a case that brought them back to one of their old schools. It had been a difficult one for Sam. It was hard to admit he’d had a hand in making a motherless bully become the one who was bullied. It’d ruined that kid’s life and sent him to an early death. Sam knew he’d just been a kid then, and that he hadn’t really understood the impact that pummeling a bigger kid and giving him a nickname, like ‘Dirk the Jerk’, would have after he’d left town, but it didn’t make him feel any better. It didn’t help that he felt responsible for not being able to keep his friend, Barry, from continuing to be bullied to the point of suicide after he’d left either. Those two kid’s lives were the price of the nomadic life he’d lived growing up, and he’d never known it until now. He wondered how many more were out there.

Seeing his old teacher, Mr. Wyatt also made Sam remember what it had been like to question the life he’d been raised in and to have it voiced by another for the first time. It made him think of everything he’d been so close to achieving before being pulled back into ‘the family business’ when Jessica died. He hadn’t had a choice in what he did or who he was in the end even though he’d thought he’d gotten away from it all at Stanford. He didn’t think he’d ever be that hopeful again.

He and Dean went out for drinks after the case, and Dean finally told him that he remembered his time in Hell. Sam had suspected that for a long time now, and had wanted to know the truth, but now that he knew he wished he didn’t. He thought that there was more to it than what Dean was saying, and he wanted to help with whatever it was, but he didn’t want to push Dean either, because Dean was finally opening up to him about it.

Apparently, Dean’s time in Hell is what Elsbeth had talked to Dean about the night they met. It was the reason Dean had lost it with her, and Sam felt torn between feeling grateful that his brother’d had someone to talk to who had kept his secret safe and disappointed that it hadn’t been him. He knew that it was only because she’d raised the issue with Dean straight away, but it still stung. It was one of the only times that Dean had mentioned her in front of Sam despite Sam knowing that his brother called her before and after each hunt the same way he had since he met her. It was this massive thing between them that neither of them would talk about.

They were finishing up at the bar when Dean got a call and turned away from him. “Everything all right?” Dean’s tone was different, so it must’ve been Elsbeth. His brother just sounded different when he talked to her; more intimate, nicer, and calmer. “How did it get in?” Not so calm now. She’d never once called his brother, or at least not to Sam’s knowledge, so it must be something pretty important. “What do you mean you don’t know what to do with it?” This sounded interesting. “No, I don’t want her to know where you are either . . . wait you what? No, you can’t just . . . all right . . . okay, go find a car. I’ll text you where to meet us.” Dean hung up before turning to Sam and saying, “Come on we’ve gotta go.”


	21. Miner Joe

I’d been at the cabin on my own for over a month and had gone past the point of hating the place and thinking of it as a prison to feeling comfortable and liking my own space. I spent most of my time outside training or making short trips to Green Bay, but at night I’d curl up next to the fire and either read a book from a library 2 towns over or play solitaire. Dean was supposed to have been back for a visit a week ago, but they’d caught a case. I hadn’t minded. It would have been good to see him or have human contact with someone other than my bookie, the librarian, or shop clerk in town, but I could manage it a bit longer. In one more week, I’d be able to start hunting.

I’d been out all day and rushed through taking a shower and putting on a clean change of clothes, so I could start making dinner. When I went to the kitchen, I flipped on the light and saw something move to the left of my periphery. I automatically pulled my gun and came face to face with a big grizzly bear of a man. He was standing just inside the door, and judging from the black eyes, my second ever demon. My first, if you didn't count Ruby. I might've gotten a lump on the back of my head from her, but we'd never been formally introduced. 

I wondered how long he’d been standing there. He hadn’t been there this morning. I think I would’ve noticed. I was actually more than a little relieved that he hadn’t seen me outside on my own, or if he had, that he thought he’d be able to ambush me inside and got trapped instead. I issued Dean a silent thank you for the devil’s trap, and left the room to go find my holy water and sawn off. I needed to do a sweep of the house to find out if we were alone, or if there were more of them. We were alone. 

_What the hell do I do with him now . . . Play it cool . . . So, I’ll just act like it’s not a big deal he's there and make dinner? Think I should bring up the fact that he looks like a miner from the 1800s? . . Sure, why not? Maybe he’ll take it as a compliment. Besides. What else are you going to say to him? . . Nothing. Now that I think about it, I should treat him like a toddler in time out . . . Sounds good. Let’s do that._

I returned to the kitchen, placed my sawn off on the countertop, so that the barrels faced him, and went about making my dinner. I could play it cool. No reason to panic. It’s not like he was a spider.

When I had finished making my dinner, he still wasn’t doing anything but watching me and flashing his black eyes at me every so often, so I pulled up a chair next to the counter and started to eat. After a couple of bites, I said conversationally, “So, Miner Joe, why don’t you tell me why you’re here, and how you found this place.”

He didn’t say anything other than, “Fuck you, Bitch,” so I carried on eating without paying him any attention.

I finished with the dishes, flipped off the light, and went into the living room. I needed to take my mind off the demon in the kitchen, so I played a couple of games of solitaire and then went back into the kitchen to grab a beer. By the time I closed the fridge, I guess, he’d had enough of me ignoring him. I suppose it did let him know how little I actually thought of him, and demons like to think they’re a big deal. “Where’s Kevin Smith?” _I wish I knew. I’d love to be having a drink with him right now. He seems like a fun guy._

I flipped the cap off my beer and sat next to the counter again. “The writer and director? No, you probably don’t mean him. Sorry, don’t know him. Maybe if you describe him, I can tell you if I’ve seen him.”

I took a sip of beer, and he growled, “He’s the motherfucker who sent me back to Hell last time. I promised him the next time I climbed topside I’d be sending him to Hell, and I’m here to see good on it.” He actually sounded like he was a gold miner . . . or a pirate.

“Well, from the looks of things when I moved in here, it didn’t look like anyone had been here in years. If he’s a hunter, he’s probably already dead or knew enough to change up his routine. When’s the last time you were up here, the 1800s? You know it's 2010 now, right?”

All he did was glare at me, so I got back up and went into the living room, flipping the kitchen lights out as I went. I grabbed a book and curled up on the couch. I wasn’t really reading. I was thinking. But I wanted him to think I didn’t give a shit if he was there or not. Eventually, I went back into the kitchen for another drink, and this time he said, “The 1980s,” so I sat back down. “Go ahead and send me back, but I’m coming after you next time, Bitch.” I hadn’t decided what to do with him yet, so I just got up, turned off the lights, and got ready for bed.

I laid down on the couch, turned off the living room lights, and could hear him cursing me from the kitchen. His animalistic growl got louder and louder until I eventually yelled for him to shut up, or I was going to make him shut up, and he quieted down for a few minutes, but it didn’t last long. I threw my blanket off, went into the kitchen, grabbed a salt/holy water mixture I’d made while I was searching the house earlier, and threw it on him. “Don’t think because I haven’t done anything to you yet that I won’t.” 

“Fuck you! Where’s your boyfriend? We miss him down in Hell?” _Boyfriend? I don’t have one . . . never really had one. One night stands, sure, but . . . weird. Were those fake too? No, they couldn’t have been . . . right?_ Uh, I needed to try that one out and see if it felt the same as it did in my fake life . . . some things were different, like the smell of flowers were different, so I thought of those things as having been fake in my old life, but other things felt the same, like alcohol and nicotine. I generally thought of those as things that maybe the angels went out and got for me in the real world. Fingers crossed, sex was one of those things too . . . maybe I got let out sometimes and had real world field trips to bars where I could drink and smoke and meet the occasional hook up. That sounded better than random men being brought into my fake life . . . and random men being brought into my fake life, but who'd been up for a hook up, sounded a lot better than having fake sexual partners that were nothing more than Life Model Decoys or memories that had been downloaded into my brain . . . _Oh, I really don’t want to think about this now . . . or ever really._

I think whatever the demon was going for on the boyfriend thing one was lost on me, so I turned off the light and went back to the couch. I wished I wasn’t dealing with this on my own. I had no way of killing him, and I couldn’t exorcise him. If he went back to Hell, he’d open his trap about me to someone who would relay the information to Lilith, so he could get a pass to come right back up here. I didn’t know if there was a living person in this meat suit or if he was already dead, but I couldn’t afford to let Lilith know where I was. This demon had to die.

I wished I could take him to Dean. Dean had Ruby’s knife. I couldn’t let Sam know where I was staying if I ever wanted to come back here again, so I couldn’t call Dean. If I had a portable devil’s trap, then maybe I could take Miner Joe out of here and then call Dean. Why did that feel familiar? It felt like the answer was on the tip of my tongue, which meant it was a memory. I just needed the right question to unlock it. It wasn’t as strong as the memories of the Apocalypse. I wouldn’t get much more than a sentence about it if anyone asked, but maybe that was all I needed.

Miner Joe had started to get loud again, so I got back up and stormed into the kitchen. “Look, if you don’t want me to hook you up to an I.V. drip of this stuff. I’d suggest you knock it off!” I splashed him with more holy water and salt to drive home my point. “Now, if you’re bored or want something to do, ask me questions. I’ll name a topic and you ask me a question. If I think it’s a good one, then I’ll answer it.” He was the only one around, and I knew Dean and Bobby were both on hunts, so this guy would have to do.

“I already know all about you, girlie, why would I have any questions for you?” _Fair enough. I’ll just wait._ I went to walk back into the living room, but his voice stopped me. “Wait a minute. I didn’t say no. How about if I know more, you let me go, and if you know more, you send me back.” I could work with that, so I went back into the kitchen and let the games begin. I knew I might regret this. There was no way he wouldn’t mess with me along the way, but it’d be worth it if I could get this memory back, and there was no way he was walking out of this alive, so it didn’t matter what I said to him.

He didn’t trust me at first. He was right not to, but luckily for me he wasn’t a very smart demon. We started off on small things, and he was eventually entertained enough that he let his guard down. I told him to ask me about weapons, weapons used on demons, and demons in general in that order. When I didn’t know an answer, he would gleefully call me a ‘dumb bitch’ and fill me in on it. I didn’t know if he was telling the truth on any of it or not . . . more than likely not. Long after the sun had come up, I told him to ask me more specific questions about demons, like what I knew about Lilith or Azazel or other demons from legend. Finally, after a few misfires on names I hadn’t known, he said Abaddon.

“Abaddon is a knight of Hell.”

He shook his head. “Not is, was, she hasn’t been seen in over 40 years. None of us knows where she went.” _Is he using verb tense as a way to try and not give me that point?_

“Well, then maybe you should ask a question to clarify what I meant.” I’d laid my head down on the counter in exhaustion by this point. It’d been a long night.

“Fine. Why isn’t Abaddon helping release Lucifer if she’s here?” _We’re on the right track._

“Because she went into the future following Henry Winchester.” Henry _Winchester? Interesting._

“Well, fuck me . . . who knew those Winchesters were pains in the ass even back then? If that’s true then I hope she killed that motherfucker. Did she kill him?” This is what I’d had to put up with all night, and it was why I was exhausted.

“Yes, she killed him, but not before he shot her with a bullet marked with a devil’s trap,” I yawned. That was it. That was what I’d wanted. I didn’t let on that the game was over just yet. I let him ask me more questions about other demons first.

After another 30 minutes, I stood up from my chair. “Where’re you goin?”

“Not all of us can stay up for eternity. I’m going to sleep for a couple of hours. Then we can start back up again. Think I’ll go upstairs to my room, so I don’t have to listen to you growling.” I grabbed my weapons bag and went through it when I got to my room. The key was to put the devil’s trap on the bullet, keep the bullet from exploding, and make sure that it stayed inside the body. He’d be trapped in his meat suit, and I could move him. It took me a couple of hours to get everything set up.

I went back down to the kitchen when I was done, and the demon was saying, “Don’t look like that nap done you much good,” when I pulled out a gun, said, “I’m sorry man in there,” and shot him in the shoulder.

After the initial shock had worn off, Miner Joe screamed, “Hey! You dumb bitch! What’d you do that for? I’m gonna rip out your heart and everyone you know’s heart, and then I’m gonna piss all over your corpses.” _No, you’re not._ I peeked around the back of him, careful to not cross the lines, and found an exit wound in the back. _Damn! I knew that’d be too easy._

I got my other guns and tried them out too. Finally on the 3rd try, I’d found the right gun and ammo combo. No exit wounds with this one. I wanted to make sure he was secured, so I shot him again and grabbed some bottled holy water. If the bullets hadn’t worked, then I’d need to get a good head start, and splashing him in the face with holy water seemed like a good way to get that. As long as I made it to the front door before he did, I’d be okay. He was an idiot, so I was banking on him following me straight into the trap at the front door. I held my breath, scratched a line in the trap, and watched him closely. He didn’t make a move. There was venom in the looks he was giving me, and he could still talk. Fuck, could he talk, so I gagged him, tied his hands and put a paper bag over his head so I didn’t have to look at his eyes anymore. If he could talk, he could probably bite, so it was better safe than sorry in case he got the gag off anyway. I ran upstairs and called Dean to fill him in on what had happened. I don’t think he understood, but he still said he’d tell me where to meet them. Now I just needed to find a car.

It took me a few hours to eventually find an old truck at a place about 5 miles away. Stealing from the neighbors probably wasn’t a great idea, but if I wiped my prints, and put the truck back where I found it when I was done with it, they never had to know I was the one who took it. I parked as close to the front porch of the cabin as I could, and then had to figure out how to heft 250 pounds of deadweight from the kitchen to the truck. The back door into the kitchen would’ve been easier in some ways, because it was closer to where he was, but there wasn’t a porch back there, so I would’ve had to figure out how to get him from the ground up to the cab of the truck on my own. 

I went upstairs to get a blanket, laid Miner Joe down, slipped the blanket under him, like a sling, and dragged him through the house. I didn’t want to jostle him too much, because I didn’t want to dislodge the bullets. I briefly considered adding another one, but thought that might be overkill. I eventually managed to manhandle his top-half onto the floor of the cab. The bottom-half of him was easier to get after that. After cleaning up the cabin from any mess I’d made, I got into the driver’s seat and told the man in there with the demon that I was sorry for leaving him on the floor of the truck, and then took off.

I pulled up to the abandoned warehouse where Dean had told me to go about 6 hours later. I’d bottomed out from my adrenaline rush hours and hours before that. Sam and Dean both got out of the Impala when they saw me pull up, and Dean asked me what happened. I tried to explain to him again what I’d said on the phone, but I wasn’t making any sense. The easiest thing to do was show him, so I opened the passenger side door and showed him the demon on floor. “Dean and Sam, meet Miner Joe. Miner Joe, meet Sam and Dean Winchester. I know you’re a fan.”

At first, Sam thought I’d actually shot a real human, but Dean ignored his accusations and got in the truck, pulled it into the abandoned garage, and then had Sam help him drag Miner Joe to the chair in the trap. As soon as I removed the bag and gag from Miner Joe, the demon made no attempt to hide its black eyes and began hurling a litany of abuse at me. Sam backed away, saying something about how he had to go to the car and get some more supplies, but I think that ringing Ruby and warning her about this latest development was probably more likely. 

“Miner Joe, I needed to move you, and this was the only way I could do it.” I didn’t know if the guy in the meat suit was still alive, but he’s the one I was talking to in there.

“I hope Lilith finds you, little North Star. You’re a fucking bitch.” He must not be too upset with me. He was still calling me the nickname he’d given me last night.

Dean told him to say that again, and the demon snarled, “That’s right, Winchester. I know all about her. So does most of Hell.” At that, Dean turned and told Sam, who was coming back through the door, to take me out to the car. 

15 awkward minutes of standing next to Sam later, Dean came out and said we needed to get rid of the body. They lifted the guy into the back of the truck I’d stolen, and Sam drove it to a field near where they were staying. Dean followed him in the car, and I crashed in the back of the Impala hoping that the man inside of Miner Joe had gone on peacefully long before I’d met him, but knew he probably hadn’t.

I partially awoke the next morning with an arm draped loosely across my side. My eyes were still closed, and before I knew what I was doing or could question whose arm it was, I reached back and slid my hand down the forearm until I found another hand. Lacing my fingers over the top, I pulled it up under my chin like a blanket. In response the form behind me pulled me closer and curled into me more. I felt safe and secure for the first time in a long time. I was almost asleep again when I heard a groggy voice say, “Mornin’,” just behind my right ear. _Oh bollocks!_

“Morning, Dean.” 

“Sleep alright?” I must have.

“Like the dead. You?”

He put his forehead on the back of my shoulder and said, “Yeah, if the body I was buried with was alive and kicking.” _What?_ I tried to look at him, and he laughed. “You kicked me twice.” _No I didn't._

“I did not.”

I tried to look at him again, and he let me go, rolled to sit at the edge of the bed, and looked back down at me with a dozy smile to say, “Think I’ve got more bruises from you than any hunts I’ve been on lately.” He looked pretty well rested, and bed head certainly suited him. _Stop that. We already talked about this._ I sat up and went to get my stuff for a shower to prevent myself from ogling him. 

“So, what’s the plan,” I asked digging through my bag.

“No plans yet. We’ll probably look around for a case,” he answered getting up to put on his jeans.

“Okay. I’ll just take a shower and get out of your guys’ way.”

“Does Sam know that?” _I’d really rather just start hunting on my own._ I had enough money to do it after winning a couple of bets on long shots last weekend.

“He hasn’t agreed yet, but he will,” Dean answered with a shrug. Sam came back right on cue. _Time for that shower, I think._ When I got out, they were still arguing, which . . . it’s a little awkward having people arguing about you in front of you. I wasn’t going for a jog today, so I needed to find another reason to get out of there. I picked up my jacket, thinking that maybe we were far enough away from a shop that I could be gone for a while if I walked, but when I went to close the door behind me, I wasn’t alone. “Where are we going?” _Uh._

“Shouldn’t you –“

Dean shut the door behind him and said, “No. We’re done. You’re staying. Where are we going?” _Uh._

“I don’t know . . . I just wanted to get out and get some breakfast, and maybe a laptop?” _Looks like we’re driving._


	22. Hitting the Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are one to two paragraphs in the middle that begin with the first word in the first paragraph being in bold. One or both paragraphs may be triggering for some people.

When Dean and I got back, all three of us sat down to look for a case, and again I found myself wishing I wasn’t there, but I ignored the awkwardness and focused on using my new laptop find something that would at least get us out of that motel room. “Hey. Did you see this thing in Columbus?” I asked after what felt like forever. 

“Yeah. It’s probably nothing,” Sam said.

“Yeah, but all the victims are missing –“

“I’ve been doing this my whole life, and I don’t think it’s a case.” _Dick_. I slumped down and hid behind my screen before Dean came over to read what I had over my shoulder. I pointed out what was missing from all the victims and typed, ‘kitsune?’ so he could see what I thought it was without having to say it out loud in front of Sam. He thought about it for a minute, and I could see him weighing up his options. Did he want to piss Sam off more or look into something that was clearly a case?

Eventually he said, “We’ve got nothin’ else. Couldn’t hurt to look into it. If it’s nothin’, we’ll move on.”

Sam slammed his computer shut and went to start throwing his things in his bag, while I gave Dean an apologetic look. He shook his head as if to tell me not to worry about it, and I thought that maybe he and I might get pretty good at non-verbal communication if we had to do this for long.

After what felt like the longest drive in the history of driving, we finally made it to Ohio State. I didn’t have the right attire for the investigation, and I really wanted to go to the morgue, so I went to go buy a black suit while Dean and Sam went to the police station. I needed a decent suit, but the only one the shop had that looked the way I wanted and that was the right length for my legs was about a size smaller than I would have liked even though it fit. It looked professional, but I preferred to wear things that made me feel comfortable. I took it, because I was short on time, but wondered if I’d be able to return it after we were done, so I could use the money for one I actually wanted.

When they picked me up about 10 minutes later, Dean tossed me the cop file and said, “Here. See if anything stands out to you.” _There’s nothing quite like the pressure of a pop quiz._

I looked through the file and said, “I need to see the bodies to verify, but I think I know why all three of them were chosen. Maybe we can use that to narrow down our search area around the bars.” Dean looked over at Sam and asked if he wanted to go to the morgue with me or talk to the first victim’s housemate. Sam declined the morgue offer.

“Remember, I’m with the FBI, and you’re a new recruit,” Dean said for the umpteenth time as we approached the doors to the medical examiner’s office.

“I know. I got it the first time.” I quickly opened the door and walked through it, so he couldn’t change his mind. Dean did his thing to get us in to see the morgue, and pretty much the only thing I had to do was flash my badge at the right moment. Other than that, he did all the hard work.

“So, what brought you to the Bureau,” the ME asked when we got downstairs where the bodies were.

“I’m afraid I don’t have a very comforting bedside manner, so pathology was always my first choice, and maybe I’m idealistic, but the FBI seemed like the place where I could do the most good. I was just lucky that they agreed.” He was about to ask me another question, when Dean cut in and asked him to bring us up to speed on the case. After the ME left us alone with the bodies, I got stuck in, and Dean stood behind and watched. He thought he was having me do the crappy grunt work, but I enjoyed it. 

"You know I still have about a week before I'm supposed to start hunting, right?"

Dean looked away from me playing with the brain and said, "I know, but we're good. Haven't gotten to the actual hunting part yet." _So, I can help with the investigation, just not the hunt . . . until the week is up._ It was only fair. A deal is a deal.

"You should really let me go to Bobby's."

Dean sighed and said, "Not you too." It didn't make any sense for him to make these kinds of waves when the last time I'd talked to him before Miner Joe, he'd said things with him and Sam had been pretty good.

"It's situations like this that get people killed because all the problems outside the job start bleeding into the job."

He glanced in my direction to see what I was examining now and said, "You wanna go?" It wasn't a matter of want.

"Not want. Should. I'm really happy to see you again, but that doesn't mean I should stay."

I looked over at him when he didn't say anything, and that prompted him to say, "You've just gotta trust me on this."

I gave him a slight nod and said, "Okay," before I went back to examining the tissue.

"That's it?" What else did he want me to say?

"Yeah, unless you want me to show you what I'm looking at now. See, I'm separating the regions. Like this one is responsible for regulating -"

Dean quickly said, "Do we even need that?" 

"Uh, no. I just wanted to know if I could do it."

He looked over my shoulder and said, "How long have you been doin' that?" _I don't know._

"15-20 minutes."

He looked back towards the door and said, "How much longer is it gonna take to find out what we need for the case?"

"I already found it. It was in the charts he showed us at the start, and I confirmed the pituitaries were missing from these brains about 5 minutes later."

He didn't say anything at first, so I looked at him again, and he exhaled a laugh before saying, "You're such a freak. Let's get out of here."

When we got in the car, he asked if we’d even needed to go there, and I said, “Well, now I know why the pituitaries were taken on these specific men. I know any pituitary will work for a kitsune, but this one has delicate tastes . . . I think, she’s been spoiled. The first guy was a body builder, so it’s kind of obvious why his growth hormone levels were through the roof. He –“

Dean quickly said, “He was injecting them . . . So she sniffed out the hormones, thought she was gonna get a big juicy pituitary, and went for him.” 

I smiled and said, “Yeah, but an experienced monster would’ve known better. They wouldn’t have bothered with a guy that big for a normal payout. He put up a fight. He had all kinds of defensive wounds, and there was blood and tissue from her all over the crime scene. He hurt her pretty bad. I think that’s why there was such a long gap between him and the next one, but only a couple of days between the second and third. She needed time to heal after him . . . Her lack of experience makes me think she’s on the young side and just starting to hunt on her own without adult supervision, sort of like when a monster goes to college.”

“Okay, so why’d she go for the other two victims?” They were interesting.

“They were both PhD students, and both of them were into yoga, something some people do to help manage stress. One of them hadn’t been doing it long enough to make much of an impact, so his ACTH and cortisol levels were really high, and the other probably wasn’t getting as much relaxation out of the classes as he needed even though he’d been doing it for a while. His stress hormones were high too, just not as high as the other one’s. They were both a lot smaller than the first guy, so the risk to her was lower. I say we stake out the yoga places near the bars where those two guys were last seen. I think it’s a female, and she’s attractive. She probably goes to the yoga classes, and either invites the guys for a drink after class or follows the ones she has her eye on from the class to the bar, waits until they’re drunk, and then gets them alone.”

When I was done, Dean gave me a huge grin. “What? Did I get something wrong?”

He started his car and said, “No. You get excited about the weirdest things. You actually liked playing with the bodies . . . Wednesday Addams.” He didn’t mind that I was morbid, and it made me feel less ashamed about my dirty little secret. 

The rest of the case was kind of boring with the whole stake out thing. It takes so long for what you’re looking for to happen, but you have to stay as alert as you can, so you don’t miss it. Two days later, something interesting happened. A guy stumbled out of one of the bars. He fit the right profile as a victim. We’d seen him go from the gym right after a yoga class into the bar earlier. Sam had asked around the bar when he was done with the first victim’s roommate and found out the first victim had been with a girl all night. She was a red head. So was this girl. She’d also come from the class too, even though she went to the bar solo. As drunk as the guy was and given her size, she should have been struggling more with the man’s weight, but it didn’t seem to faze her one bit.

Sam and Dean got out of the car, and Dean paused before looking back and asking, “You coming?” When I opened my mouth to say that my 6 weeks wasn’t up, he rolled his eyes and said, “All right . . . Leave her to us. You’re on victim duty.” _Oh thank God._ I quickly jumped out of the car to join them, extremely happy with his little loophole.

Sam followed the couple down the alleyway, and Dean had me stay with him as we went up one of the parallel side streets to cut the kitsune off. She moved faster with the guy when she got him further away from the busier streets, but we were still able to get ahead of her about 5 blocks away. Dean held me back against the wall with his arm as she passed by us even though he didn’t have to since I was already against the wall, but then he was really protective.

After the kitsune got a good 10 feet past us, Dean moved behind her with his knife drawn. Despite how silent he was, she heard him anyway and dropped the drunk guy, so she could focus all of her efforts on Dean. Her claws were fully out, but Sam had gotten there by then, so I grabbed the drunk guy and pulled him away from them. He was my responsibility, and getting a PhD is hard enough without being killed by a monster or getting stepped on by a hunter . . . or at least the PhDs in Heaven’s University were.

After the kitsune was dead, we dropped the guy off at the address he gave us after I convinced him we were a group of taxi drivers. That’s right. A group of taxi drivers. Yeah, he had no idea what was going on. With the hunt over, Dean and I went to one of the college bars nearby, and Sam went back to the motel room.

I watched Dean hustle the college kids out of their money most of the night. To say he was talented would be an understatement. It didn’t matter if it was eight ball, nine-ball, or anything else, including doing trick shots. He was amazing, and he did it all with a charming kind of cockiness, or at least that’s the way it came across when you weren’t the one losing money to him. Even though I’m not very good at playing pool, I still found a way to make quite a bit of money by betting on Dean. When he’d call a shot, I’d bet the people standing around watching that he’d do it by banking it in certain places and with certain kinds of spin. All I had to do was pretend like I didn’t know him and do the geometry.

The guy I won the most money from told me the least I could do was buy him a drink, but I refused. It’d be like handing his money right back to him. He went and got one for himself anyway and came back to drink it next to me. We talked awkwardly for about 5 minutes, and I thought he’d get the hint that I wasn’t interested, but he didn’t.

**He** was my age apparently and looked it, so I didn’t doubt that he was a TA. He was attractive, but he wasn’t my type. He kept trying to dumb things down for me, because he thought I was an idiot, and at the same time he kept giving me all these phony compliments I didn’t want to hear and touching me even though I kept removing his hand from my hand or arm or knee or once when he started to slide it up my thigh. I’d had just about enough of him when he leaned in and grazed his hand against my chest, while giving me another compliment about my supposed assets. _Down your drink and smash it over his head . . . No. I’ll down the drink and tell him to fuck off . . . Okay, but if that doesn’t work, smash it over his head . . . I won’t hurt him just because he’s a drunk ass . . . Take the pacifist route, and move somewhere else? . . Already did that, and he followed me . . . Well, you’ve got to come up with something and fast._ I finished my drink without having decided quite what I was going to do with him, and as soon as I turned to tell him to fuck off, he decided to go for it. I wasn’t expecting him to lean in the way he did, and I didn’t want to hurt him, because I could have, so I fell off my barstool trying to get away from him.

I jumped up, had a quick look around to see if anyone noticed other than him, and then briskly headed for the door. “Hey, Beth. Wait up.” _Hurry up, Dean. I wanna get out of here._ Dean grabbed his cash off the table and the digits from the girl he was talking to before jogging to catch up.

“Hey, thought you had something sorted for the night,” I grumbled after we walked out into the much quieter night air.

“Nah. Just somethin’ to pass the time. That was some exit back there.” _Great. So glad he saw that._

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I didn’t want to talk about it, and I didn’t want to be made fun of for it either.

"Yeah. Picking up chicks 101. If she looks like she’s trapped, you shouldn’t go in, but if she falls off a bar stool to get away from you, it’s a definite no.” At least he wasn’t making fun of me. I was more than okay with making fun of the guy though.

“How about if a woman says she’s not interested, you should fuck off, or if she keeps taking your hands off of her, you shouldn’t touch her anymore, or if she moves to get away from you, you shouldn’t follow her. Or if you ask a woman to buy you a drink, and she tells –“

Dean's laugh sounded a little weird. “He didn’t do that, did he?”

I smiled. “Oh, yeah, he did . . . I won $250 off of him, and he thought I owed him a drink . . . maybe more than that, but I won it fair and square.”

I showed him how much I made betting on him and told him how I did it, so he found a way to make it foolproof in the future. After that, going out at night when we weren’t in the middle of a case was my sanctuary, but we had to tone it down when we got back to the motel room, or really any time we were around Sam. It made the job that much more tense with me there. So far there hadn’t been any mishaps during a hunt, but it was probably only a matter of time before there were.

I was a little surprised that none of the cases seemed familiar to me over the next couple of months. There were a couple of hunts for spirits, a bizarre one with sprites, a pagan god, and one with a skinwalker. Eventually Sam found one involving three men who had beaten their wives to death, so that’s where we were headed next. Things were more tense than usual on the way there. Sam got a couple of calls from Ruby. Dean liked that about as much as Sam liked me being with them.

I got tired of listening to their thinly veiled anger with one another and put my headphones on to drown everything out. When we got to where we were going, I shadowed them as a new FBI recruit, like Dean always had me do. For the first time in a long time, I’d noticed that details in the case seemed familiar to me. It wasn’t Apocalypse-related, but familiar still. When Bobby told us that we had stumbled on a siren, I felt even surer that this was something I had seen in the past.

We were going to collect blood samples from the men who had killed their wives when a proper FBI agent, Nick Munroe, got involved. I didn’t like him. Call it a gut instinct, intuition or latent memories, but I thought he was not to be trusted. That’s why after Dean and Sam called Bobby to have him verify that they were agents, I called him back, when I had a moment alone, to say that I had a bad feeling about this case and thought we may need help. With Sam and Dean preoccupied with arguing with one another, I hadn’t felt like I could go to either one of them about it.

Bobby told me to stay with them and that he was on his way. Staying with them became more difficult when they separated. Sam decided to head back to the doctor’s office to retrieve a blood sample that we hadn’t been able to get because of Agent Munroe, and Dean went with Agent Munroe to the watch the strip club. I stayed with Dean. It felt like the right thing to do. While on the stake out, I kept an eye on Nick. When he openly started drinking a beer on a case, I knew something was about to go wrong. He went to hand it to Dean, and I reached up from the backseat and smacked it out of his hand.

It sprayed everywhere, and Dean was in the middle of yelling about the mess I’d made, when Nick spat some sort of venom in his face. _Oh, that’s gotta be bad._ He told Dean to kick me out. He could have just had Dean kill me then and there, but if Dean had done that, it would’ve broken the spell, and having Dean kill Sam meant more to this thing. Anyway, I wouldn’t get out, and I wasn’t going to hurt Dean, so I may have struggled with him to stay in the car when he came to pull me out by my feet, but I didn’t hit or kick him. I mostly wouldn’t let go of the back of the seat. But no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t really a match for Dean’s brute strength, so I eventually landed hard on the pavement, and he took off in the car with that dickhead siren, riding shotgun.

_Where’s Sam? There’s no way he’ll answer a call from me. You've gotta try . . . Nope. Straight to voicemail._ Dean had told Sam we’d meet him back at the motel, and the motel was a good distance away, so I called Bobby who would be another 25 minutes. We’d probably get there around the same time if I started running now. By the time I got there, Sam had been infected too, and the siren had them in some sort of death fight. They’d already gone through a wall. And holy shit the things that must’ve been said before I got there.

At some point, Sam must have told Dean he was weak because of what happened to him in Hell, and venom or no venom, it pissed me off that he’d throw that in Dean’s face, because none of what happened down there made Dean weak. This siren venom was like truth serum, which meant he’d been thinking it, even if he hadn’t said it. He also must have said that Dean was holding him back or something, because Dean was ranting about all of that and more while he grabbed an axe. I didn’t want Sam dead just because he didn’t like me. I needed to buy some time until Bobby got there. Neither one of them had noticed me with all their focus being on each other, so I ran up behind Dean and grabbed the axe handle when he raised it above his head. I pulled down behind him while quickly forcing his knees forward with both my feet, and he fell on his knees and let go of the axe. Score one for me, but now I had to find the knife that would kill the siren, so that’s what I started doing, but the place was a mess.

The siren said that it seemed like I was a source for a lot of the trouble and that it wanted me killed first. _Stupid, fucking siren._ The one who didn’t kill me could then kill the one who did and stay with him forever. Sam volunteered and went to get up, but stopped when the siren said, “No, I want that one to do it,” pointing to Dean. _Fuck. Where is that fucking knife?_ As I started to back away from Dean, I threw the axe to the other side of the room. I didn’t want something so big that could be easily taken away from me by someone stronger, and there’s no way in hell I’d use it on Dean. I had a thing with axes anyway. The thought of them being used on people or me creeped me out. Maybe it was because of _The Shining_.

Dean lunged at me just as I tripped over some broken furniture, so I ended upon the ground under him, and . . . _oh, that’s where the knife went._ He was straddling me, so I couldn’t get up, and then he brought it down full force towards my heart, but it veered off to my left at the last second. I looked at the knife and then up at him. _Uh, wrong way around . . . we need his blood, not mine._ I grabbed ahold of the handle and yanked up to take it out of the ground, but before I could do anything with it, he took it from me. I thought maybe it was game over, because it looked like it at first, but instead of using it to kill me, his shaking hand brought the knife from hovering over my chest to the palm of his other hand. _Okay, seriously, how the fuck is he doing his?_ His blood started dripping down on the front of my shirt as he sliced across his palm, but before he could do anything else, Bobby came in the door behind us and cut Dean with his own bronze knife. I assume he must’ve thrown it at the siren as it tried to flee after that, but I don’t know for sure, because I couldn’t see anything beyond Dean. The second the siren was dead, Dean dropped the knife, and his eyes fell to where he’d given me a deep cut to the upper arm. “Dean, it’s okay . . . I’m –“ He leaned down to press his forehead to mine and took a deep breath but didn’t say anything. I was okay, but he wasn’t.


	23. First Fight

They were sitting on the edge of the tub in the motel bathroom, so Dean could stitch her arm. He’d done this. It would be her first hunting scar, and he had given it to her along with any she had from the window the first day they met . . . He was the only thing that kept hurting her. It wasn’t just that he’d been the one to stab her. Dean had talked to Bobby to find out how Bobby’d known they needed help, and Bobby said that Beth had called him during the hunt.

Bobby thought that it was a case she knew something about, but since it wasn’t directly related to the Apocalypse, she was going based off of gut feelings rather than definite foresight. She’d told Bobby that she had a bad feeling about Nick. When Dean asked Bobby why she hadn’t said anything to him, Bobby had given him a meaningful look and asked if he and Sam had been arguing the whole time, cause if they had, then maybe she hadn’t thought that either of them would listen to her.

Dean would have listened to her if she’d said something, or at least he thought he would have. He hadn’t realized how messed up he and Sam still were until he’d insisted that Beth stay with them. He still hadn’t told Sam about Adam. He almost did after the hunt at their old high school, but the talk about Hell had come up instead. Both of them were still keeping things from one another. It was the phone calls from Ruby that kept getting to Dean. Sam wouldn’t even admit that it was Ruby half of the time, but Dean always knew when she was on the other end of the phone by his brother’s body language. And why did Sam take some of the calls outside, but not others? Why did Sam leave just after some of her calls?

Sam thought it was the same thing Dean was doing with Beth, but she wasn’t a demon, and she wasn’t a ‘whore who’d been bought by Lilith,’ like Sam had said she was tonight. Sam may not know every last detail about Beth, but Sam should know him well enough to trust his judgment. It all came down to trust. He didn’t trust Sam anymore, and Sam didn’t trust him. _How did it all get so fucked up?_

He paused at the final stitch. She didn’t flinch, but he may have been a bit too rough with that one. 8 stitches. He’d almost killed her tonight, so it could have been worse. He remembered everything that had happened. He remembered getting pissed that she’d knocked the beer all over his car and then feeling something wet hit his mouth when the fucking siren spat on him. He remembered dragging her out of his car and everything he and Sam had said to one another. He knew they had both meant every word. And then he did this to her.

Maybe he should have let her go back to Bobby’s the way Bobby wanted. She’d probably be better off getting away from him, but he couldn’t let her go after what that demon said. It hadn’t been looking for her in the cabin, but it had recognized her somehow. It made all that stuff Cas said about her more believable. She’d made the right decision in thinking that the demon couldn’t be allowed to go back to Hell. It didn’t know as much about her as it thought it did, but it was a lower level demon and knew enough. He didn’t want to think about what Lilith or Alistair knew about her, and if they were looking for her . . . no. She had to stay with him.

“Can I look at your hand?” He looked away from her and shook his head. “Let me take care of it . . . It needs to be cleaned . . . I mean, I guess we’re like blood brothers now, right?” That’s what she was worried about, her blood getting in his cut? “I don’t blame you for anything that happened. With other things that are out there, it’s kill or be killed. It’s not a line I would ever cross with you, so -”

He cut her off by shouting, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! If it comes down to you and anybody else, I don’t care who they are; you take the other person out. It’s the one thing I’ve been saying to you since we met. Protect yourself. You should have done whatever it took to make me back down tonight even if it meant burying that axe in my chest.” _She could’ve at least pulled her fucking gun._

“Yeah, right. Like you would have if it had been Sam or Bobby?”

“That’s different, and you know it,” he yelled, while standing to block her way out of the room when she tried to leave. “What the hell am I even doing teaching you this stuff if you won’t use it when you need it?” She could throw silent daggers with her eyes when she wanted.

“I don’t know, Dean. You tell me,” she answered calmly before stepping under his arm and into the next room. He turned to follow her, but she’d already started in on her own rant while she walked away from him to go sit on one of the beds.

“I know trying to stop seals from breaking is complicated because of how many could be broken, so we don’t know which ones will be attempted next, and I know every time people die because of a seal being broken you feel responsible for it . . . I know that I’m a big source of tension between you and Sam . . . and Lucifer’s still probably going to be stomping around up here like a giant toddler in a few months, because so far I’ve been able to prevent fuck all with what I know about the future . . . But I don’t like it when you snap at me or shout like you were just now when you’re really pissed off with Sam and everything else that’s going on at the moment, because this isn’t about me not burying an axe in your chest . . . and just what was I supposed to do by the way? Pretend like I was Jack taking out Hollorann . . . no thank you . . . but . . . I didn’t need to do that, because you were fighting that siren venom even though it shouldn’t have been possible . . . You were remarkable tonight . . . How the hell else am I not in the morgue . . . and maybe I should’ve told you about my feelings about Nick, so I’m sorry I didn’t, but I’m not sorry I didn’t go all Patrick Bateman on your ass while listening to Huey Lewis and the News.” She’d somehow calmed him down . . . maybe it was her comparing Lucifer to a toddler . . . might’ve been the movie references. Her saying that he’d been remarkable is what made him want to laugh though.

She glanced up at him and said, “Stop looking at me like that . . . I didn’t say anything funny,” which did make him laugh. “Stop it . . . Can we just go back to being normal?” Their sort of normal was actually pretty good. He ducked his head and nodded. She watched him to make sure he meant it before going to grab her bag to get ready for bed. When she walked by him to go into the bathroom, he impulsively grabbed her and turned her into the wall to boldly land his mouth over hers before he could think that he shouldn’t. Whatever this was . . . whatever that prophecy meant . . . it was already strong enough that it had loosened that siren’s control over him . . . so he should stop, but with the way she responded to him . . . it clouded his thinking. Picking up the intensity of the kiss, he found her hands and pinned them against the wall just above her head, so he could maintain control of when they stopped, and smiled into the kiss at the moan of approval she gave. She must’ve liked it more than he intended. It made him want to find out what other things she liked . . . but he couldn’t.

Leaving his hands over hers, he broke the kiss and looked down at her while he debated with himself, but instead of ending it as he’d planned, he decided he didn’t need to stop yet. As long as he slowed things down, he could enjoy this a little longer, so he returned to her mouth to idly meet her tongue with his. When the pace increased again without him noticing over the next several minutes, and she bit his lower lip, a short growl escaped his chest before he moved his mouth to her neck. Spurred on by her soft panting, he brushed his lips slowly down until he found a spot that made her exhale another moan and told him without words that she wanted him to linger there. He continued to pin her hands, less to control himself and more because it turned her on, while he slowly swirled his tongue over the erogenous zone in her neck and gave her a couple of gentle bites that he soothed with his lips and tongue before moving his way back up to reclaim her mouth.

He lost track of time after that. He also completely lost the will to stop. At some point he slid his hands down her arms and along her sides until he got to her waist and grazed his fingertips gently along her skin at the bottom of her shirt before he slipped his hands down to rest on the back of her thighs, so he could pick her up. With her legs wrapped around his waist, he pressed into her harder against the wall. It looked like he found something else she liked . . . really liked. That’s good. He was a fan of this position too. Next time.

He was just pulling her away from the wall to take her to the bed when he heard the Impala pull up outside. Stopping to catch his breath, he looked at her with her messed up hair and lightly swollen lips and couldn’t quite leave it, so he leaned forward to give her a lingering parting kiss before reluctantly putting her down. They couldn't take this to the next room and finish it with Sam around. I’d make things worse. But he wasn’t ready to let her go yet either. She put her forehead on his chest and moved her hands to his sides to steady herself, and he kept an arm around her and placed his other against the wall for support. They stood there for a few moments trying to regain their composure before he heard the key in the lock and stepped away, and she went in to take a shower without looking back.


	24. Well That Happened

I spent a good hour in the shower staying away from the water with my stitches to keep them dry while also trying to stay close to the water, so I could try and relax. It was long after the water had gone cold that I finally stepped out. _Hope nobody else needed a shower._ I was being a coward, because I wasn’t ready to go back out there and face the consequences of what just happened. I didn’t want to worry about where I was sleeping or whether I was taking things the wrong way or if I was looking at him too much without noticing it. We were friends, and that’s all we would ever be, but these little glimpses of what could be were hard to ignore.

I didn’t want things to go weird or for me to give away exactly how much I still wanted him. I knew that we would both pretend like it hadn’t happened just like we didn’t talk about what happened at Christmas, and I liked that we hadn’t discussed that, because it would have shone a light on something I really wanted to avoid. What if Rachel got that kind of emotion when we were separated, and all I got was logic and reasoning? If I had the brains, then what if she really did get all of the heart? What if I didn’t have it in me to feel the way he needed? He deserved someone that could give him more than I could as a freaky half-human.

Sam was back, and it brought home for me all the difficulties this would mean for he and Dean if things continued, so I used that to calm myself and toweled off, got dressed, and made sure I looked composed in the mirror. I needed to make sure my face didn’t give anything away before I left.

They were both sleeping or pretending to sleep when I entered the room, and it left me to be the one to decide where I slept for which I was grateful. Less awkwardness that way, or at least I hoped so. I couldn’t play the part of being okay if I slept so close to him so soon after . . . whatever it was that had happened. My nerve endings were still fried. I couldn’t go back to it being the way that it had been with us chastely sharing a bed. I’d been sharing with him since the first morning I’d woken up next to him, but I hadn’t felt like I had completely lost all sense of self around him before this either, and I needed that distance for now. It may have seemed weird to one or both of them that I chose not to share with him again, but I could always blame it on my arm and buy some time until it healed. I could pull this off. It made the decision to grab a blanket off the foot of one of the beds and curl up on the couch easier.

I got up early the next morning and went for a walk instead of run to keep from pulling my stitches. It took a lot longer, but gave me some more time. I felt better. When I got back, Dean was out getting breakfast, so it was just Sam and I. He mentioned me sleeping on the couch, and I said that I hadn’t wanted to do more damage to my arm. He nodded and looked at the wall before saying that he wanted to say thanks for the night before with the siren. With a small smile I said, “It was no big deal, Bobby did all the work. I just bought him time to get there,” just as Dean came back.

You could feel that things were more relaxed that morning. There seemed to have been an unspoken truce between the brothers, and Sam was trying with me, so that was a start. “So, what’s the plan?” I asked grabbing a doughnut.

“I was thinkin’ we could take a couple of days off; head to Bobby’s,” Dean replied as he moved to sit on one of the beds.

Sam disagreed. “But shouldn’t we be out there digging up what we can about the seals. Do we even know how many have been broken? Ruby said there were demonic omens in Idaho. We could check that out.”

“Oh, come on Sam, we’ve had a hell of a time the last few days. What do you think Beth?” _Me?_

“Well, I wouldn’t mind seeing Bobby. Last night was the first time I’ve seen him in months, and I have the feeling that things are about to really start kicking off soon, so some time off before that happens would be good, but it wouldn’t hurt to check out the Idaho thing either for the same reason,” I finally sighed as they both looked at me.

“Did you just agree with both of us? You can’t do that. One or the other,” Dean said, fully expecting me to side with him. Unfortunately, I didn’t.

Sam laughed when Dean grumbled that it was the last time I would be the deciding vote, and with that, any worries I had about the awkwardness of the situation with Dean were dispelled. The only thing that I really noticed as being different after that was that I was acutely aware of Dean’s proximity when he was near. It was like there was a magnetic pull between us that got stronger the closer we were to one another, and it was pulling us into small touches here or there. More likely, I was just more aware of him now, and we weren’t actually doing anything different than what we normally did. I was probably the only one who noticed it, and I thought I was imagining it, so I began to ignore it.

Waiting for them to finish their investigation that went nowhere on Ruby’s demon omens, I found a job for us in Washington. I was pretty pleased with myself when they agreed to take it. There had been 6 victims over 3 months with their hearts ripped out. The deaths coincided with the lunar cycles, so it was almost definitely a werewolf.


	25. Figuring Things Out

Sam hadn’t expected Elsbeth to side with him over his brother on the case in Idaho. She and Dean were thick as thieves, possibly literally. They were out until all hours most nights, and when they came back, it was obvious that they’d been doing more than just drinking. His brother liked to drink, but he never had as much fun in bars as he appeared to be having these days unless he had a good night hustling, got into a fight, or brought back a girl, and there hand’t been any of the latter that Sam had seen, except for Elsbeth. 

He’d originally thought that she was turning into something of an easy access sex companion for his brother, but he was starting to think that he’d been wrong about that. It wasn’t all that obvious, but the first clue had been her moving to the couch a couple of days ago. Her arm couldn’t have been bothering her that much, so why did she suddenly need the distance at night? They weren’t fighting. In fact, when they were all awake, his brother hovered around her more. 

Dean had kept an eye on her the whole time she’d been on the road with them, but over the last couple of days, Dean looked at her less and stayed within arms reach of her more. If he didn’t know Dean so well, he wouldn’t have been able to pick up on it, because all of it was very subtle. Now he thought that his brother had made a move on her, and she’d rejected him. Her rejecting Dean would cast doubt on her using sex to get Dean on her side . . . unless it was a ploy to play hard to get, which seemed to be working, but to be honest, he’d thought they’d been sleeping together for a long time now, so if he’d been wrong about that, maybe he was wrong about her playing hard to get. 

If she wasn’t sexing Dean up when they weren’t in the motel room that meant she was either encouraging Dean to steal and pawn things or get into fights on their ‘nights out’ as they called them. She and Dean both had a lot more money than they should have if Dean was the only one hustling, and she didn’t play, so it was probably stealing with as much as Dean talked up her breaking and entering skills. Or Dean was fighting, and they were placing bets on him, and that’s where they’re extra cash was coming from. Dean’s fists were a mess . . . Dean never had any marks on his face or anywhere else though, so maybe the knuckles were a result of hunts, which brought Sam back to stealing.

Bad influence or not, she meant a lot to his brother, and Dean genuinely believed she was in danger. That demon Elsbeth caught a couple of months ago . . . whatever it said to Dean during Dean’s interrogation must’ve tipped Dean off to something, because her coming on the road with them had only been something Dean became adamant about after that. But even before that, Dean wanted to protect her. From Sam. From Lilith . . . Lilith. Sam still didn’t understand Dean’s reasoning on that.

Why would Lilith be after someone who wanted to save her life? And for Lilith to go after Elsbeth wouldn’t that mean that Lilith had to know who she was? Did Elsbeth cross paths with a demon or witch overseas who then informed Lilith of Elsbeth’s gift of foresight? Her gift was legitimate. It may be hit or non-existant on their hunts, because she didn’t always know what was going to happen, but when her gift did kick in, she was never wrong . . . well, except when she said they shouldn’t kill Lilith, but that was a different matter. So, alone, overseas, living a normal life, Elsbeth somehow drew Lilith’s attention? 

He’d checked plane manifests to see if Elsbeth had been on any flights back from Ireland in the weeks and months before he first saw her, but nothing turned up. Either she was lying about having lived there or she was transported back the way she said, but for something to be able to teleport her here like that, it had to be powerful. Lilith could do it, but Lilith wouldn’t have dropped her off at a random motel down the street from where he was staying. She would’ve taken Elsbeth to her own hideout and drilled her for information. That would mean that Elsbeth would’ve had to escape Lilith, which didn’t seem likely if Lilith really wanted her, or it meant that Lilith let her go. Why would she do that?

Maybe Lilith had brainwashed her into believing that Lilith’s death was the final seal, and then maybe Lilith put her in their path. Maybe Lilith thought that Elsbeth’s natural gift being right on random hunts would make them more inclined to believe what she was saying about Lilith being the final seal. If Elsbeth had been brainwashed, then she was a victim, and the way he’d treated her since he met her had been kind of mean. Cas trying to diminish her psychic abilities wasn’t very good either. It seemed like angels were always trying to trample on people with gifts. They wanted Sam to stop using his. They wanted Elsbeth to stop using hers. Maybe she did need their help more than he’d thought, but something told him that he still couldn’t trust her. If she had been Manchurian Candidated, then she was a loose cannon, and Dean believed everything she said, which was a problem.

Trust issues aside, Sam had been sincere when he thanked her for saving his life. He didn’t know why she did it when he was the only one who could kill Lilith, but he knew that if she hadn’t, his brother would have killed him. It could have been a ploy to get on his good side, but she had done it at great risk to herself, not that he’d seen what happened after Dean took her down, because he’d been too busy trying to find something he could use to kill his brother, so he could win the siren’s undying love, but it could’ve been very bad for her, and if he let himself question her motives for saving him, then he would have to question if Ruby saved his life for the same reason. 

When they got to Idaho, Elsbeth put together a case file while he and Dean were out looking for demons. Sam had been impressed with her first complete file. It was obvious that she’d been exposed to higher education with the way it had been laid out and organized like a report. When he told her that, she had taken it less as a compliment that he intended for it to be and more as a way of saying she had gone over the top with it. She’d said that she just wanted to make sure that it was clear enough, but she’d try to tone it down for the next one. If she was going to stick around, then the two of them would have to work out a way of not taking what the other one said the wrong way all the time.

Since she had put the whole case together, Dean had said she could stop with the rookie routine, but she still stood back and left them to it at the police station. When Sam asked her why, she said that if she acted like a field agent instead of a pathologist at the police station, it might blow her cover at the morgue, where she really wanted to take the lead. She always went to the morgue with Dean, but this time Sam volunteered to go. He wanted to see why she’d chosen to focus on that. When they got there, he realized that it was because she took a genuine interest in the bodies. She seemed to be able to detach herself from what she was examining and understood the science behind it all. She wasn’t squeamish and had sounded like she could have been a doctor with the terminology she used. She could take all the morgue visits going forward, as far as he was concerned.

Based on the radius of the attacks, it hadn’t taken long to narrow down that the werewolf was connected in some way to a group of warehouses located at the epicenter. On the last night of the lunar cycle, they’d gone there and separated to cover more ground. Elsbeth stayed with Dean and Sam went his own way. He heard gunfire half an hour later coming from the direction they had gone. When Sam got there, he saw a werewolf standing over Dean and Elsbeth. It raised its hand to strike Dean’s back, and Elsbeth, who was under Dean, wrapped her legs around Dean and rolled him, so that she could shield him with her body. Sam could have let it kill her. There was still something off about her, and he didn’t have it all figured out yet, but he couldn’t do it to Dean, and he owed her one, so he took aim and ended the threat before going over to help them up. 

Later, while he was patching Dean up at the motel, Sam found out that there had been three werewolves. While Dean and Elsbeth’s focus had been on the first two, the third one had jumped down toward Elsbeth from one of the stacked wooden crates. Dean hadn’t been more than 3 or 4 feet away from her, so he’d gone to push her out of the way, and it landed on him while he landed on her. It got one good swipe in on his back, but reeled back after Elsbeth reached up from under Dean with her silver knife to cut its hand on the next attempted strike. That stopped it from hitting Dean again and bought her enough time to do the roll Sam saw when he got there. Sam knew he’d chosen correctly in deciding to save her when he saw how beyond pissed his brother was that she had flipped him and put herself in danger even though it’s the exact same thing Dean had done to her. He was smart enough not to point that out to Dean though.


	26. Problems From Outside the Job Start Bleeding Into the Job

The ride back to the motel from the warehouses was quiet. Dean wasn’t talking to me even though I could tell he had something to say. He didn’t have to say it. I already knew why he was furious. Was I mad at him for saving me? No. I was grateful. He should be too instead of thinking of all of the ‘might’ve beens’. Sam got there in time. Nothing happened to me, and I’d do it again. I was just glad that I’d been able to reach my knife after Dean or the werewolf knocked my gun out of my hand. _Ugh, he’s going to try and put a moratorium on me hunting now, isn’t he?_

They went into the bathroom so Sam could take care of Dean’s injuries, and I headed for the door. There was no way that I was hanging around to be yelled at for something ridiculous. I left a note saying I’d be back after they went to bed and went out to walk. When I came back a couple of hours later, they were asleep, and I went to sleep on the couch.

When I woke up the next morning, everything on the surface seemed fine. Dean talked to me as if there were nothing wrong. If anything, he seemed to be over the top carefree. It was an act. I could tell it was an act, because I could see the underlying anger break free in the quickly unmasked glares he shot in my direction when he thought I wasn’t looking. Finally, after several hours of Dean pretending to play nice and me pretending not to notice while staying as far away from him as I could, Sam found a case to get us all out of there.

It took us a couple of days to get where we were going, and things continued on in the same uncomfortable fashion the whole way there. The only change was that I could tell that Dean now had a plan. When we got there, he filled me in on it. It was simple, and I had been right. I was staying with them, but no more hunting for me. He kept my IDs and told me I could stay in the car or motel room, but I wasn’t allowed to have any part of this hunt or any hunt until he said so. I took particular umbrage at the smug almost glee with which he had told me. Sam actually tried to say I wouldn’t be too bad to have at the morgue, but Dean wouldn’t change his mind. 

As soon as they left to go work the case, I got what I needed from their things to make my own ID, dressed in my stupid business suit that I never got to return, and headed out too. I wasn’t going to be told what to do, and I was the only one out of the three of us who actually liked the morgue, so I went there on my own. They’d go to the police station first, so I had time to at the very least get there before them, so Dean couldn’t do anything about it without blowing our cover.

I had more time at the morgue than I'd thought I'd get. The medical examiner walked me to the door after a thorough examination of the bodies and a very charming, informative interview. It’d been exactly what I needed to feel a little better. I was just shaking his hand when I saw Dean and Sam heading our way behind the sheriff. The look on his Dean’s face was priceless. The sheriff turned around to question them about my presence there, and Sam said that I was the forensic medical expert assisting them on the case.

I shook Sheriff Powell’s hand and smiled saying, “Hi, I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet you first, Sheriff. I really wanted to but sometimes I have to act like a free agent and go where I’m needed most while my partners meet with local law enforcement. We don’t know how much time we have until the next attack, so I thought it was important that I get started as soon as possible. Dr. Wilcox here has been very informative. He’s done an excellent job.”

The sheriff turned to Sam and Dean with a chuckle and said, “Looks like you boys didn’t need my help to find this place at all. Sure could use the kind of resources you Feds have at your disposal. Beats the heck outta what I’ve got to work with down at the station. No offense, Carl. Well, I’ll leave ya to it then,” before shaking his head and walking back down the steps.

As we rounded the corner, Dean grabbed a hold of my arm and escorted me to the back seat of his car, before getting in the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut. “What the hell was that? You were supposed to stay in the room!” Sam stopped at his door, reached for the door handle, looked unsure, and then decided to walk back to the motel.

“How did you think this was going to go? You didn’t give me any valid arguments on why I had to stay behind at the motel . . . you didn’t even try, because there were none. You just wanted to punish me for doing exactly what you did by taking that hit for me.” I was trying to stay calm. I really was. But I don’t think I did a very good job of it. It'd been building up for days now.

“You almost got yourself killed! I didn’t need you to protect me! I had it taken care of!” _Oh, please!_

“Yeah, that’s why you have claw marks down your back now. I can make my own decisions. You can’t just ground me and send me to my room when you don’t like what I do. You’re not my father, and I wouldn’t have listened to him either,” I finally said losing some of my composure.

“We both know you’re more like an 7 month old who doesn’t get the way this world works, and I’m not trying to be your father. Maybe you’d know that if you’d actually had one. I’m trying -,” he stopped when he realized what he’d said. It stung. If it had been anybody else but Dean I probably wouldn’t have felt blindsided by it or cared, because what he'd said wasn't all that bad. It just kind of broke this unspoken agreement we had . . . I left him alone about Hell and didn't use it against him, and he did the same on this. It was punching below the belt, and we didn't do that, or I hadn't thought we did. Maybe my past bothered him more than he let on. “Look, I-“

“It’s fine Dean. I should’ve kept things locked down more, so it wouldn’t escalate. It was the best way to out maneuver me given the circumstances, and what you said is true, so I couldn’t argue it even if I felt like it,” I rested my head on the window and finished with, “Let’s just go back to the motel. It’s a vetala. They can work in pairs, but this one is alone. I’ll stay in the room tomorrow.”

They finished out the hunt with me not involved. If I didn’t know why I was with them before this, I had even less of an idea why I was there now. I did nothing except read some books I bought and put my headphones on when I heard their keys in the lock. Dean was avoiding me on anything other than case related things, and since I wasn’t working the case that meant on everything. He brought me in on the next cases, but he still didn’t discuss anything other than the job with me, and the longer it went one, the less I understood why he didn’t just say he didn’t want me there, so I could go do this on my own. We eventually got a call from Bobby telling us about a case in a town called Greybull. When Dean asked me if I knew anything about it, I said that I thought it was the reaper seal and Alistair would be there. I told him it would be a win if they went.

When we got there, Dean wanted to go straight to the funeral home based on what I’d said, but Sam wanted to make sure that what I said was right by doing a complete investigation. They went with Sam’s idea. Dean knew they’d stop the seal from being broken either way, and he wanted to keep Sam happy. I didn’t really care. Use it. Don’t use it. Whatever.

They went to the graveyard for a séance to find Cole, a little boy who was the last one to die in the town, and I stayed in the room, because apparently they both thought this one was too much for me to handle. I wasn’t necessarily happy about that. I felt like skipping ahead and beating them to the end, but would play this however they wanted for now.

I had to clean Dean up when they got back. I was surprised he wanted me to do it. He normally took care of these things on his own or had Sam do it. Sam didn’t have a scratch on him and was claiming not to know why Alistair hadn’t been able to use his powers on him.

After Sam left the room, Dean asked me what really went down after he got knocked out, and he was almost like the old Dean. I told him Sam had been able to do more than simply resist Alistair’s powers. He’d used his own powers to hold onto Alistair, and Alistair’d had to escape the body he’d been possessing. If Sam couldn’t do that the last time they saw Alistair, but could now, I thought it was possible that Sam had gone back to the demon blood. As soon as I said that, Dean’s features steeled, and he got up to go find Sam, so they could make plans on what to do next, but I wasn't done cleaning him up yet. _Did he seriously just have me play nurse, so he could find out what really happened with Sam?_ I felt so used. I needed to get out of this situation once this case was done.

They called Pamela in for assistance, because they wanted to use astral projection to enter the funeral home. When the guys left on their ghostly walkabout, I stayed in the room with Pamela. I had some decent company for the first time in about a month. I probably talked way too much to try and make up for it. Eventually I told her I had a specific knowledge on just things related to Lucifer and asked her if she thought that I was a psychic too. It was sort of a test for her. She said she didn’t get that impression. She sensed that I was shrouded in mystery and that there was something blocking her from being able to see any real details about me. She also said that if I knew things, it wasn’t because I had been born with the gift. It was more likely that I had the knowledge from some other source. I didn’t confirm or deny any of that, but she was pretty spot on with her analysis. She was good.

What wasn’t good was the feeling I got after that. It was the same feeling I’d had with the siren and that beer, so it meant I missed something and didn’t have much time to fix it. I stood up and Pamela asked if I knew something she didn’t. It wasn’t the right question. All I got in the way of an answer was, ‘ _demon_ ,’ but it was enough. “A demon is coming . . . I think you need this more than I do.” I handed her Ruby’s knife. She’s the only one that knew how to wake Dean and Sam back up, so she needed it more than I did. It left me free to draw a few devil’s traps around the room. Pamela and I hadn’t put salt lines down, because they would have prevented Dean and Sam from leaving or returning to the room, but I should’ve laid some damn devil’s traps down long before now as a precaution. My brain had just been on everything but where it needed to be.

I did one devil’s trap at the front door and another under the window next to it. _Two more to go._ I put one under the window on the opposite side of the room, and that left the one I needed to put in front of the bathroom. I didn’t think I had enough time to do another devil’s trap, so I grabbed a canister of salt. Dean and Sam could still get back to their bodies in a way that didn’t involve the bathroom, not that it was likely they’d come back here through the bathroom anyway.

The salt line was half way across the bathroom door when I was flung back into one of the beds by an unseen force. _Fuck._ I’d cracked my head really hard. _Where’s Pamela?_ I thought I heard her whispering into Sam’s ear before the demon picked me up off the ground. I’d dropped the salt, but I still had the spray paint in my jacket, so I used that to spray in the demon’s eyes, and he dropped me. Things were a little blurry, but I could still see the partial salt line, so I crawled towards that and grabbed a handful as the demon tried to pick me up again. _Ha, take that asshole._ I smashed it in his face, and him clutching his face and screaming bought me some more time. Maybe I could lead him into one of the traps? I started crawling towards one, and pointed to a devil’s trap I wanted Pamela to go to when it looked like she was going to come help me. I didn’t want anything to happen to her on my account.

The next thing I knew, I was sliding backwards across the floor as the demon used his telekinetic powers to pull me towards him. I grabbed another handful of salt on my way past the salt line, but when I got to the demon, he picked me up in a bear hug with my arms pinned to my side, so reaching his face with the salt again wasn’t an option. I couldn’t even reach the ground with my feet. _It’s so embarrassing when this happens._ I divvied up the salt in my hands and rubbed them on his ands and arms to try and make him drop me, and he did, so I crawled towards the salt canister I finally spotted and grabbed it, got to my feet, and turned to face him pretty breathless after all of that.

He decided not to get any closer and just used his telekinesis to throw me into a wall. I landed in a heap on the floor, and he approached again. He certainly was tenacious. When I poured salt on his shoe as he tried to pick me up again, he screamed and reached back with his foot to kick me before he kicked the salt out of my hand. Then he picked me up in a bear hug again and I felt a knife against my throat. The demon told Pamela to break the trap at the front door, and I said, “Oh come on! I just finished that. Go out the fucking bathroom window.”

Probably shouldn’t have given him any tips, because that’s where he started dragging me as Sam finally sat up, and the last thing I heard before everything went black was the demon saying, “Tell Dean, Alistair sends his regards.”


	27. The Joker, Scarecrow, and Harley Quinn

When I woke up, I found myself sitting on the floor with my upper body tied to a support beam behind me. “Why are there so many abandoned warehouses where bad shit happens in this country?”

I thought I was alone until I heard a man chuckle and say, “Not just warehouses.” He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He was tied up too, and from the looks of it, he was worse off than me.

“Do I know you?” Didn’t exactly get good vibes from him.

“Only by reputation . . . Oh the fun we would’ve had if I’d gotten my hands on Dean’s whore before those Heavenly cockroaches intervened. They’re more like blunt Neanderthals. It’s a pity. When they’re done, you won’t be much to look at. I could have made you a work of art.” _Alistair._

“Yeah, well . . . beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. How long have we been here?” I was trying to play it cool. I had pissed off angels around here somewhere and Alistair, Hell’s number one torturer, as a cellmate. How the fuck could anyone play that cool? 

I heard a deep voice from a doorway across the room to my left say, “My comrade put you to sleep a week ago.” _A week? What the hell? How does that work exactly? Shouldn’t I be hungry or a mess? Is it like I was kept in stasis on a spaceship while I made the journey? Wish I were finally going to see some aliens instead of this._ I’d been over this scenario with Dean more than once, so I knew the players involved. That hadn’t been Cas’s voice, which meant it’d been Uriel, but it also meant that Cas had knocked me out for a week. “Castiel, you can come in here now. The mud monkey has arisen.” _Does Uriel know that I know he’s the one killing angels? If he does, it’s not from me. Dean thought he got away with it when he met Uriel. Maybe he didn’t. No, I'd be dead if Uriel thought I knew what he's been doing. What am I doing here again?_

I saw Cas walk into view, but he didn’t show that he knew me at all, so I did the same. He was under Uriel’s command now, which meant he wasn’t an ally. They approached me, and as they got closer, I leaned my head back against the pillar to show my disinterest in anything they had to say to me. When Uriel got about 2 feet away, he stopped and looked down at me in open disgust. “Why are you trying to keep Dean Winchester from preventing The Apocalypse?” I glanced at the two of them, and noticed Cas looked away from me regretfully before turning his eyes to Uriel. Maybe Cas is an ally in the making and just needs a push in the right direction.

I looked away and refused to answer Uriel, so he coldly tried again, “Why is Dean being told not to kill Lilith?” _I am so sick of that question._

“I think you already know why. I’m not saying anything else.” I refused to look at him out of defiance rather than submission. I needed to provoke Uriel into action. I hoped that the angel I thought Cas was at heart would find a way to step in and convince Uriel to leave if he saw me being mistreated.

I felt the backhand across my face before I heard Uriel move. It felt like I’d been hit by a tree, but I still refused to look at him. He struck me again with a closed fist, and when that didn’t elicit a response, he pulled out his angel blade and used it to slowly slice it down my left arm. It made my arm feel like it was on fire, but I still refused to flinch or look at him. Another punch from Uriel didn’t compel me to do anything other than spit out some blood, but it did make my vision go a bit wonky. _I think I need a concussion expert on staff 24/7._

“Uriel . . . Dean will only help us with Alistair if he knows that she is alive.” Keep going, Cas. Do the right thing. I know you can.

“He doesn’t have to know how alive she is. Just that she is.” _Not cool._

“You are too close to this with the losses we have suffered in our ranks. I will do what needs to be done, brother.” And with that Cas earned my absolute trust.

“Perhaps you are right. I will see if I can find the Winchesters,” Uriel finally conceded before disappearing. 

Cas kneeled down in front of me and turned my bruised face towards him. “You’re safe now.” _Well, not yet._

“Not as long as I’m here, I’m not . . . I know Dean told you that when angels started dying, it’d be Uriel who was doing it. You must have figured out that I told him. You know that I know things. Important things. You’re the one who hid them from me,” I whispered so that Alistair couldn’t hear me. 

“I have seen nothing to indicate that Uriel is to blame. Why would Uriel kill our comrades?” _Good question._

“He wants to start up a faction of angels who will be there to follow Lucifer when he rises. He kills the ones who say no to him, so the ones who are dead were loyal to Michael.” I rested my head back against the pillar I was tied against, so I could try to look him in the eye and let him know I was telling him the truth.

“There are protocols I must follow. I cannot kill him without proof of his treachery.” 

“I’ll find you proof, but we can’t let Dean come here to interrogate Alistair. He wouldn’t have been the righteous man in the prophecies if he weren’t actually righteous. If you force him to interrogate Alistair now, you will break him the same way Alistair did, and Uriel knows that. He doesn’t want the righteous man to stop The Apocalypse.” Cas looked like he was taking me seriously. He just didn’t know what to do.

“The burden of proof is not on you. It is on me, and I cannot let Uriel know I suspect him if I wish to prove his betrayal. I must go with him to collect Dean. How can I keep Dean from being defeated?” What a lovely angel. He wanted to keep Dean from being defeated. There was something so naively sweet about it.

“When you go to get Dean, keep up your hard ass routine, like you have been since you met him in the barn, but tell him to get whatever he needs to interrogate Alistair, because your torture implements may not be enough. Tell him he doesn’t have a choice in it, and before he goes to get whatever he’s going to get, tell him to remember Miner Joe. If things go wrong, we'll need a back up plan, and that's it. Once Dean is here, you can’t leave the room, even if Uriel says you must. Say anything you have to say to stay in here. That's where the plan might fall apart. Hopefully, it won't, and if it doesn't, we’ll work out the rest once we get that far.” 

“Why shouldn’t I leave the room?” _Why can’t he be open like this with Dean?_

“Dean and I have talked about this a lot, and in the show I watched, Alistair got loose and almost beat Dean to death. It’s how you figured out Uriel was a traitor. He’s the one who broke the trap. I don’t know if Uriel will do that this time, but if he does, then Dean could use your help with Alistair, and I guess it’ll also give you the proof you need.” He hesitated and then looked curious.

“If that is what you saw happen, why wouldn’t it happen now?” _Because we’re going to try really hard to keep it from happening?_

“Well, that’s the thing about the future . . . it isn’t written yet, and I’m hoping that you staying in here will be enough to change it.”

A sympathetic look crossed his face before he said, “The future has been written, or it could not have been shown to you, but I think I see now why you would ask for this extra burden.” _Nothing is set in stone._

“Why would what I know be dangerous enough for you to hide it from me if others couldn’t use it to change the future to whatever they want?”

He looked over his shoulder at Alistair before looking at me again and saying, “I hid it from you because things like him want to know the future, even though it will not change, and because you have a tendency to disclose secrets that will unfold naturally on their own, thus putting you in more danger . . . I did it to keep you safe.”

“But why didn’t you just take those memories from me if you think they’re useless?”

He stood back up and said, “It was not my place to override God’s will.” _But he could tweak it?_

“Why was I losing my memories before I met you?” Cas didn’t look like he was going to answer that, either because he didn’t want to answer it or didn’t know how, so I said, “Look for Anna. She should be around to lecture you about making Dean interrogate Alistair, and then she should be there to help you with Uriel . . . that is if things haven’t changed.” I didn’t know angels could roll their eyes, but Cas did before he left to go find Uriel and then Dean.

I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to fall asleep waiting. It was better than listening to Alistair tell me the things he did to Dean on the rack. When I woke up, Dean was crouching down in front of me. He looked really pissed off. It was an intimidating thing to see when I first opened my eye. “I know. I know. I’ve looked better. I don’t know what it is . . . Maybe I forgot to put on makeup when I woke up this morning?” I really wished I could’ve done something to keep him from ending up in that warehouse.

“Nah, haven’t seen you wear make up yet, and usually you look great without it . . . It’s something else . . . Oh, I know. Half your face looks like you went 12 rounds with Apollo Creed.“ _Yeah, that’s the way it feels._

“Oh, that? I wouldn’t put too much thought into it, but . . . I had to play the part of Harvey Dent to get Harley Quinn on side if the Joker and the Scarecrow are teaming up soon.” I wanted him to know Cas was with us even if he didn’t look like it, and that he shouldn’t think about it in front of Uriel.

“You’ve seen her. Now do what you’re here to do and find out why Lilith is killing the angels.” I guess it was show time.

"You said she was okay. Does that look like she’s okay,” Dean shouted while he stood and pointed down at me.

“I said she was alive. As long as you get what we want from the demon, she will remain alive. Come Castiel, we will leave him to do what he does best.” I despised Uriel. He was the epitome of what was wrong with angels. Cas on the other hand . . .

“Brother, I will stay to make sure that she isn’t released until we have what we need.” _Not a bad first attempt._

“Then we will take her with us.” _Uh, no. Definitely not. Fix it, Cas._

“I do not think it would be wise to let her out of Dean’s sight. We do not know how he would respond. It is an unnecessary risk. I will put her to sleep, so that she does not witness anything, and make sure he does not take her in the meantime.” _He’s pretty good at thinking on his feet for an angel._

Uriel searched Cas’s face for a couple of seconds and smiled before saying, “Dutiful as always, Castiel. Let me know when it is finished, brother. I have something we must discuss.” _Well, that’s different._

Moments after Uriel left, Dean moved behind me to cut my bindings. “Cas, can you heal her?” _That’d be nice._

“It is against my orders.” Cas was trying so hard to walk that line between following orders and doing the right thing.

“Yeah? Let me guess. Uriel gave you those orders. I told you months ago who would be killing angels when they started dropping, but did you listen? No. Now they’re dead, and you let this happen to Beth. With friends like you, who needs enemies?”

Dean helped me stand and turned us towards the door, but stopped when Cas stepped in front of us. “Get out my way, Cas . . . I only came here to get her, and now that I’ve got her, I’m leaving. You wanna waste time torturing answers out of Alistair that he doesn’t have, then be my guest, but I’m taking her to the hospital.” Dean held onto me tighter as Cas reached out to touch his fingers to my head. I felt warm all over for a few seconds, and when he was done, I could see out of both eyes and the pain was gone.

I quickly wrapped my arms around Cas in a big hug that he didn’t know how to return and said, “Thanks, Cas. I knew you were the best angel ever created for a reason.”

When I stepped back, Cas headed for the door saying, “I think it would be best if you and Dean left now.”

We almost made it to the door before the Scarecrow decided he wasn’t getting enough attention. “Is that it, Dean? You missed story time earlier. I was just finishing up the way I made you break on the rack. She fell asleep before I could get to the good part about you picking up the blade.”

Dean froze, so I went back to him and quietly said, “The good part was when you got out. You can send him back. It won’t be easy for him to get out again.”

Cas opened the sliding door. “I will send him back. The two of you should leave before Uriel returns.”

Dean glanced at him and said, “I’ll do it. Then you can tell Uriel it was me if you –“

Cas cut him off by saying, “I am not afraid of Uriel. I cannot act until I have proof that he is recruiting for Lucifer. I believe the conversation he wants to have with me later will give me that proof.” He directed us towards the door again and said, “Go, I will find you when I am finished here.”

Dean quickly said, “But you’re gonna need back up. Maybe we should –“ Cas pushed me through the door just before it slammed shut, and I didn’t get to hear the rest. _What the fuck just happened?_ Something smashed against the door, and I tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. I looked around to see if there was anything I could use to try and break it down or another way in and spotted a window on the second story that separated this part of the warehouse from that part of the warehouse. _How do I get to it? There! Those boxes. Push them over to the wall, and start climbing._ The window was broken, so it’s not like I had to smash it and make them aware of my presence. I got a good look at the situation before I went through. There was no sign of Uriel. It was all Alistair. He was free. _Maybe you were right about not being able to change things, Cas, but I have to try. Where’s Dean’s weapons bag? There it is. How the hell did it get all the way over there?_ There was a giant pipe to the right of my position. I could make a jump for it and scurry along the top until I got close enough to Dean’s bag to climb down one of the support beams and get the gun with devil’s trap bullets.

I had to move fast. Alistair looked like he’d already kicked Cas’s ass enough to put him down, so he could focus his attention on Dean. That’s when I saw the gun. It was a hell of a lot closer than the bag. Dean must’ve tried to use it before he couldn’t. Cas got to his feet and threw Alistair across the room. That was my opening. I climbed out the window and down the wall as far as I could before droping down the rest of the way. As soon as I landed, I started sprinting for the gun. Cas should’ve bought me enough time to get what I needed, and he did until I was about 10 feet away from the gun and found myself flying towards the nearest pillar. 

“I think it might be more fun if I show your North Star some of your greatest hits as my star apprentice, Dean. I’ll even let you watch.” Alistair didn’t get the chance to do anything before Cas stabbed him in the heart with Ruby’s knife. _Thank fuck for Cas._ I fell to the floor and looked at where the gun had just been. _Where the fuck did it go? … Change of plans. Just get Dean out of here._ I crawled over to Dean as Cas and Alistair fought. He was already a mess, but it wasn’t as bad as if he’d been here alone.

“I need you to go. I don’t know how long Cas will be able to hold him,” Dean grunted while pushing himself up onto his hands and knees.

“It’s my choice, and you’re not in a position to make me go, so whatever happens, you’re not to blame. Now get moving.” I ignored any protests he may have made and put an arm around his waist to help him stand. As we stumbled to the door, I glanced quickly over at Alistair and Cas, and it was not looking good for Cas, so our time was running out. _God, don’t let Cas get killed or exorcised back to Heaven. We need him._ I had no idea where this was going. Things weren’t happening the way they should. The one time . . . one time, I needed things to run like clockwork so that at worst they matched my memories from the TV show, and they weren’t, and now I didn’t know for sure that Dean would survive.

Dean and I were nearly to the door again when we were pulled back by an invisible force and separated by a few feet as we hit the ground. “Awww . . . You weren’t thinking of leaving so soon were you?” _Actually, I was._ I looked up to see Alistair standing above us and Cas incapacitated on the wall, and then I was picked up again and landed hard on my back somewhere else. It knocked the wind out of me, so I rolled over onto my hands and knees to try to work through it when I heard him kick Dean at least twice, but it’s not like I could do anything about it before Alistair came sauntering over to me saying, “This could be just like old times, Dean. What should I do to her first?” _Oh please. That was pathetic._ He kicked me, and I actually heard a few ribs crack as I was sent skidding away from him on my side.

“Stupid fucking supernatural beings with trees for limbs,” I grunted before he rolled me over and dragged me towards the cart of doom. _Who’s bright idea was it to bring that cart in here? You fall asleep for who knows how long and people leave torture implements lying around for any old torturer from Hell to pick up._

Alistair held me on the ground with his foot on my chest while he perused the buffet of instruments. I couldn’t breathe again, and he was on at least one of my broken ribs, because it felt like fire shooting through me, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of crying or choking or begging for air. He wasn’t doing this to torture me. He was doing it to torture Dean. If I didn’t do what he wanted Dean to see, Alistair wouldn’t win round one in this fight. I was good at mind over matter things, and I would not give in to the fear that he wanted. Instead of focusing on the discomfort and panic of not being able to breathe that was there in the back of my mind, I focused on the pain and on not showing that I felt it.

The pain was white-hot and went shooting through my chest, and after focusing on it long enough, it started to go numb and then felt cold like ice. It felt like that until a few of my ribs gave with a pop. When that happened, the pain started all over again and gave me something new to focus on. I watched Alistair the entire time, making sure that my face remained impassive. He wasn’t paying attention to the things on the table anymore. He was focused on me.

My thinking was getting fuzzy as I felt a pounding in my head, and I knew that if I held on a little bit longer, Alistair would have to release me so that I could breathe again. He wouldn’t want me passing out before he could do something worse to me in round two, and we were getting to that point soon, so I smirked at him to let him know I knew he’d have to let me go. He raised his foot to let me have a couple of breaths and then put his foot right back down again scrunching down harder this time before smirking back at me. I think I might have glared at him a bit for being a prick about that one, but my fear and panic and whatever else I should have been feeling were nonexistent.

“Remember what we used to do to the ones that wouldn’t scream, weep, or beg, Dean? What _shall_ we start with?” Alistair looked over in what must’ve been Dean’s direction, so I looked over at Dean for the first time since I’d been under Alistair’s foot, and he was blurry, but I could still see him. He was planning something. He nodded towards the devil’s trap, and I got what he wanted, but barely with my dwindling brain capacity. He wanted me to get in the trap and fix it while he distracted Alistair. I could do that, but only if I knew he’d make it in there too. It’d be like we were on a raft being circled by a great white that didn’t want to get stuck on the raft again and would hopefully go away someday, but at least we’d live. I nodded to let him know I’d try.

At my acceptance of his plan, Dean some how got to his knees, even though it was a struggle, and eventually rose to his feet, while holding onto his ribs. “Alistair, I think you’re losing your touch. Always asking me for my advice. It’s like listenin’ to a broken record. You change your M.O. to torturing with boredom?” As soon as he said it, he turned and started limping towards the door, like he was disappointed fan that wanted his money back, and only stopped when he put his hand on the latch of the door to open it. That’s when Alistair asked if Dean would rather see some of the things that he’d tried on his Dad. Dean stayed where he was but didn’t turn around, and Alistair stomped down hard on me one more time to make sure I stayed put before moving towards Dean and spouting all his crap about the first seal and comparing Dean to John. Dean was trying to recreate what I’d seen in my memories by letting Alistair walk up to him, the timing and everything about it was sort of different, but the premise was the same. Dean already knew all of this, because we’d discussed it on one of our nights out in case this whole Alistair thing happened, but he was acting like he didn’t know, and it was working. Alistair didn’t suspect for one second that he wasn’t really hurting Dean at all.

The problem with Dean’s plan was that I was more injured than I’d thought. Without the pressure of Alistair’s foot, I could feel all the damage that had actually been done. It was like I’d been in a really bad car crash and had the steering wheel crush my chest along with all of the injuries that entails. I already had blood from internal hemorrhaging making its way out of my mouth. I didn’t want to focus on the pain like I had when it was happening. Now I needed to focus on the task at hand, so I shut the pain down and ignored the broken wheezing of my chest that happened every time I breathed in and out. I had to fix the devil’s trap, because I'd told Dean I would, but Dean needed my help, or he would in about T minus 10 seconds, because that’s how long Dean had until Alistair got to him.

I looked at Cas on the wall and made a gun gesture with my hand to see if Cas knew where the devil’s trap gun might be. He shook his head no. I knew Dean didn’t know where it was otherwise he would’ve gotten it while Alistair was having a staring competition with me. So, the gun was definitely out. That left trying to fix the trap if I could and hoping that Dean could make it there, but I couldn’t even belly crawl towards the trap, because of the damage done to my chest. I slowly spun my body so that my head faced the devil’s trap and stayed on my back while I kicked off with my legs to try and push myself towards it. It also gave me an opportunity to watch what happened with Dean and Alistair while I moved.

I’d just gotten about a foot in the direction I wanted to go when Dean turned around and blasted Alistair with his sawed off from point blank range. It must’ve been the only weapon he could get to when Alistair was distracted with me. Alistair mocked Dean by sarcastically saying that really hurt, but Dean never expected for it to have an impact on Alistair if Ruby’s knife didn’t. The point was to get Alistair away from me, so I could fix the trap. 

Alistair didn’t waste any time in picking Dean up and throwing him into a wall across the room, but he did take his time approaching Dean, so he could relish in whatever fear Dean felt as the suspense built. When he got to Dean, that all changed, as he laid into Dean with powerful kicks and punches a world, heavyweight, MMA champion wouldn’t even come close to achieving, and Dean was powerless to do anything about it. It was hard to watch.

I got to the devil’s trap and fixed what I could by drying the water drops with my sleeve and smudging the chalk lines together to repair the break and did not get in, but pushed myself away from it. I needed to give Dean space to get to the trap if Alistair was focused on me somewhere else. When I was far enough away from the trap, I got Alistair’s attention by choking out, “You know . . . Dean wasn’t wrong . . . After all the build up, I’m a bit let down myself . . . I was expecting more than a few kicks and punches to be honest . . .You can’t even talk a good game, because you made me fall asleep.”

I did it, because it was getting close to a point where Dean wouldn’t have been able to make it to the devil’s trap any better than I had, and he was further away than I’d been, so I needed to buy him time to get there. Alistair dropped Dean and looked at me, so I said, “Let’s see if you can make me scream . . . but you haven’t got much time to make an impression . . . I really don’t think I have much of it to give to you . . . one of the downsides of being able to die up here.”

Dean looked terrified in that moment, and I shook my head at him hesitantly to let him know I really wasn’t going to make it. Then I nodded for him to crawl into the devil’s trap while Alistair went to pick his weapon of choice. Dean shook his head in response and decided he was going to stay put, so it didn’t quite work out the way I’d planned. “Ah yes, an oldie, but a goodie. I know it doesn’t look like much, but you’d be surprised with what I can come up with one of these, wouldn’t she Dean? It gets the creative juices flowing,” Alistair said picking up a Bowie knife. He sashayed across the room to collect me and drag me over to rest near Dean.

While I struggled to breathe, Alistair leered down at me and said, “I want Dean to feel your blood pooling around him, and he will hear your screams before I send him back to Hell. He has more to learn, and he can start now.” Bending down to hold my head in place as he brought the knife to my hairline, Alistair said something about removing my face first. He wanted to remind Dean how to skin someone in one go, like some people can when peeling an apple. He didn’t have much more than about 5 to 10 minutes with me, so I doubted he’d get much done in that time if he wanted to be so damn precise about it.

Before he could make a cut, Dean used his last reserve of energy to make a modest move on Alistair. He didn’t have much left to give to this either, and it made Alistair beat him until he couldn’t get up again this time. I couldn’t really do anything at that point, or I would have tried to help him. I knew I had a punctured lung and probably a few other organs from the broken ribs. The bones were grinding against things they shouldn’t including one another with every little move I made. Adrenaline could only help me so much if things were shutting down. Dean wasn’t moving, but he was still conscious when Alistair was done with him.

Alistair used his powers to push Dean right next to me so we were touching and said something about paying more attention to his lesson or he’d make it last longer. I kept my eyes on Dean and said, “My choice . . . Don’t be mad.” As Alistair turned back to me, Dean slid his fingers onto mine in an attempt to hold my hand, but he couldn’t really hold it after the beating he’d taken, so I laced my fingers through his, and whispered, “Don’t care what he says . . . Don’t watch.” I refused to make any noise, because I didn’t want Dean to have to hear it, and he definitely didn’t need to see it. My eyes were starting to get droopy, so I looked away from Dean and focused on feeling his hand in mine while I looked up at Alistair to say, “No time for peeling . . . come up with something better.”

That was when Sam came barreling into the fray. I wasn’t expecting him. Would’ve thought Dean found a way to keep him from coming. _Maybe Cas was right about not being able to change things._ I was so tired. I let my eyes close when Sam pushed Alistair away from us using his powers, and when I opened them 10 seconds later, I watched Dean instead of Sam or Alistair. Dean may have been in bad shape, but he still managed to turn his head and watch what happened. _Or maybe it’s small things that can be changed. He never saw this happen on the show. And Pamela is alive. Pamela not dying is a win, and it's not a small thing, even if we can't change the rest._

When it was over, Dean closed his eyes trying to get control of what he was feeling before Sam came over. To give him a few more seconds, I pointed weakly for Sam to go help Cas first. Sam didn’t know what I was wanted, so Dean, who had gotten it together during my distraction, explained that Cas could heal us. I closed my eyes again and focused on my breathing to make sure I kept doing it until Cas got down.

“Is it too late,” Dean whispered. I shook my head no while squeezing his hand gently. He still had time to get his Sam back, but I also wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone whatever happened . . . as long as Sam and Cas hurried the hell up. I think I passed out after that, because the last thing I heard was Dean saying my name, and it sounded like he was going to say something else after that, but I didn’t hear it.


	28. How Dean Saw It

Dean knew that he’d ruined everything during the vetala case. Beth tried to act like she hadn’t been hurt, but what he’d said had forced her behind those protective walls she had, and he’d never been kept on the other side of them. She was talking to Sam more than him! 

He hadn’t meant what he said. It was his job to look out for her, not the other way around, and she wasn’t making it easy for him, so he said the one thing he shouldn’t out of frustration at the only thing she did that pissed him off. He’d tried to make it up to her by letting her be involved in every hunt after that, but it wasn’t the same, because Beth wasn’t the same, and she wasn’t the same, because he’d reminded her that she wasn’t normal, and by putting it out there like that, he’d implied that who she was wasn’t normal enough for him. And that wasn’t true. 

Her kind of normal worked with his world better than if she’d been someone that was actually raised in a house on Main Street. What he and she had together seemed like a fun, twisted version of an apple pie life set in a hunter world, but he couldn’t keep that if the other person in that life shut him out of it. So he’d decided to give her space, and that hadn’t worked because weeks later, it still wasn’t better, and he didn’t know how to fix it, but maybe she couldn’t do that around him. Maybe she needed to go to Bobby’s to get it back, but he’d never tell her he didn’t want her around, so she’d have to make the decision to go on her own.

After he and Sam saved the reaper seal, Dean returned to a room that’d been trashed. There were cracks in one of the walls, spray paint all over the floors, and salt was everywhere. There was blood on the foot of Sam’s bed that Pamela was pointing out to Sam while she told him what happened. It took Dean’s mind a few seconds to comprehend what she was saying about a demon taking Beth. It wasn’t until Pamela relayed the message that it had told her to give to him that he felt any icy numbness extend through him, and his mind went into overdrive with one goal. He had to find Beth. He couldn’t think about the rest that was wrong until he did that.

He knew that he wouldn’t have much time, and as the hours turned into days, he had to lock away the part of him saying that she was already dead, and that it had been in literally the most Hellish way possible. To get past that voice in his head, Dean reasoned that if Alistair had killed her, he would have made a point of presenting her to him. Killing Beth and not letting Dean know where she was to torture Dean with the ‘not knowing’ wasn’t really Alistair’s style. Alistair liked a show, and he would want Dean there to witness it.

After a few days, Sam began to give him these godawful sympathetic glances and tried to subtly bring up the fact that Dean should maybe start trying to move on. Move on? She wasn’t fucking dead. This . . . this was worse than her being dead. She was with Alistair and maybe even Lilith, and she was with them alone. She had nobody else and needed him to find her, so that’s what he was going to do. He knew he should have sent her to Bobby’s long before this or taken the time to ask her more questions about the reaper case. This was his fault. He had to make this right. 

They tracked down omens, but came up with nothing. After a week, Cas finally answered one of his damn prayers. He and Uriel turned up where Dean and Sam were, and said they had her. Uriel said, “She’s alive,” when Dean asked if she was okay. If she was alive, then she was okay and the rest didn’t matter. His temporary relief was suppressed when they ignored his other questions about Beth and told him they needed him to interrogate Alistair. 

He wasn’t going to do that. If they wanted it done, they could do it themselves. But then, Uriel said if Dean didn’t do what they wanted, that Beth wouldn’t be alive for long. He’d go along with what they wanted until he found a way to get her out of there, but he was really beginning to hate angels. Cas told him to get what he thought he’d need to interrogate Alistair and to remember Miner Joe. Nobody but Beth would say that about the devil’s trap bullets, so at least he knew they had her and weren’t just saying they did. As back up plans went, it wasn’t a bad one since Alistair was supposed to get loose. 

When Dean got to the warehouse, he realized it was in the same town he and Sam were already in because he recognized it. They’d driven past it earlier in the day. He’d been so close to finding her, and if he had maybe he could have gotten her out without the two dicks with wings knowing. 

Walking through the door, he noticed Alistair, but quickly skimmed past the demon. He’d deal with that if and when he had to, but he had other concerns at the moment. He almost turned to ask where the hell Beth was when he finally saw her tied up on the other side of the room. She was asleep and looked so small, but maybe that was because she was alone in here with two angels and Alistair and had been for a full week. It wasn’t until he got closer to her that he saw that half her face had been pulverized and her arm had a cut that wouldn’t stop bleeding. This hadn’t been the work of Alistair. They had done this, and it reminded him of all the other things she’d suffered at the hands of angels, which pissed him off more. 

He needed to get her out of here, and then he could fix things or let her go whichever she wanted. That’s what he thought until she spoke to him in code. That was the Beth he knew, and everything between them would be all right once he got rid of the angels. Fuck them, and fuck Alistair. Once he got her out of here, he’d have done the only thing he came here to do. 

When Uriel left and Cas stayed, he thought he was running out of options until he caught a little nod from Cas and thought maybe she wasn’t wrong about getting Harley Quinn on side. He still wasn’t convinced, but Cas didn’t try to stop him from untying her, so Dean asked if Cas could heal her, and after being a pain in the ass about it, he did. And then Beth hugged Cas. Dean had no idea why she would do that when that angel had been one of the ones keeping her here all week or why she was suddenly hugging strangers when she didn’t hug people she knew. He almost asked if she was really Beth, but she was. He just knew that she was. He’d think about it later when he had more time.

Things were looking up, and they were about to get out of there until they weren’t. Uriel must’ve been onto them before he left, because he let the lion out of its cage earlier than any of them were expecting. One second Dean felt like he’d been kicked by a fucking sledgehammer and the next Beth was being thrown against a pillar. _Where the fuck did she come from? I thought Cas got her out of here._ That’s when Cas distracted Alistair with Ruby’s knife, and Alistair let Beth go.

When Beth got to Dean, he wasn’t expecting her to completely take charge. She generally did whatever she wanted on hunts, except for the last month when he killed her drive to do anything exciting, but she never tried to take over. Beth taking charge or being a free agent worked for him a hell of a lot better than her towing the company line because she didn’t care enough to do her own thing. 

She pointed out that he wasn’t physically up to keeping her from sacrificing herself for him this time, but maybe she would back off on it some if he let her know he had gotten his shit together. It took longer for him to do that than he thought it would. Alistair kept them apart after he pulled them back into the room, so all of her attention was on Alistair, and Dean couldn’t let her know he had this now.

She’d looked bored the entire time the demon stood on her chest, which was a challenge to Alistair all on its own and why it went on for so long. Dean could see her ribs giving from where he was across the room, and it pushed him to get to his weapons bag to get something he could use and then over to them as fast as he could despite his own injuries. And then he saw her fucking smirk at Alistair. He didn’t know why at first, but Alistair seemed to, and then Dean understood it too when the demon had to lift up his foot. She was letting Alistair know that she’d won. Alistair could keep doing what he was doing and not get a reaction out of her until she died, but then he wouldn’t be able to do anything to her in front of Dean, so if that’s what the demon wanted, he’d have to let her breathe. After she’d taken a couple of breaths, Alistair crunched his foot back down hard like she was a cigarette butt under his shoe, but the only response he got from her for his effort this time was an annoyed look. 

She’d learned to control pain and fear to a superhuman extent. Dean didn’t know how or why. All he knew was that now she was royally fucked. A reaction from her was something Alistair would consider a prize to be won. He had to get Alistair away from her. He had to give her a chance. If he got her to go to the devil’s trap and fix it, she could get in it, and if Alistair followed her in, she could just get out leaving the demon trapped. Problem solved. If she got in the trap, and Alistair stayed out so he didn’t get trapped, then it was still problem solved. Dean knew that she’d want him in there with her, or she wouldn’t stay in it, and if it meant making her stay there he would try, if he could, to get back to her. When she finally looked at him, he let her know what he wanted her to do, and she agreed. Now he just had to play his part, and he did, but then he got his ass handed to him by Alistair, and all of his focus went on that until he heard her voice coming from nowhere near where she should have been if she was in the devil’s trap. 

He didn’t hear what she’d said, but whatever it was had been enough to grab Alistair’s attention, because Dean soon found himself being dropped on the floor. When he heard what came out of her mouth next, he felt the full horror of the situation hit him. He knew what Alistair would do with what she was offering up to him, and it was a collision of two things that he’d never ever wanted together even though he knew it was a strong possibility when she’d been taken a week ago and again when she decided to stay when Alistair was fighting Cas. He’d let himself forget about this side of things, because so far the demon had been tame. Being beaten or crushed to death by Alistair was not the same as being tortured by him, and she was telling the demon to do his worst, because that’s what it would take to get her to give him a reaction in the time she had left . . . and Dean would be lying if he said that at least a few of the nightmares that had woken him up in the last few months and most of the ones in the last week weren’t about something like this except that now he was awake.

When Alistair left him to go pick out his toy of choice, she told Dean to go to the devil’s trap, but he wouldn’t leave her alone out here with Alistair, and that was his choice to make. He didn’t realize until Alistair dragged her next to him how bad she actually was. Maybe she was right, and she wouldn’t last long. He could try to stall Alistair by taking his attention off of her. Maybe that would run down the clock for her so she wouldn’t have to go through what was about to happen for long. 

After Dean made his move, and Alistair beat him just shy of being unconscious, Dean felt despair and helpless and hopeless, and he was afraid of what was about to happen to her, and he was sorry that he hadn’t been able to get them out of this, and he was even more sorry for making their last few weeks together a mess. Knowing things would have gone back to being good again if he’d gotten her out of here in time made everything worse. She reminded him she chose this. Then she asked him to not be mad. One of her last thoughts should’ve never been that he might be mad at her. 

When Alistair turned back to her, Dean reached for her hand, because he wanted her to know she wasn’t alone and to let her know he wasn’t mad. There were a lot of things he was feeling, but being mad at her wasn’t one of them. He watched that same sort of calm she’d had when she was under Alistair’s foot come over her, and she told him not to watch even if it meant Alistair would take things out on her more. He didn’t want his last memories of her to be what Alistair was going to do to her, but he didn’t want those last few minutes for her to be worse, but then maybe she couldn’t block it out if she knew he was watching, so it’d be better if he didn’t. He didn’t know what to do. That’s when Sam showed up. _What the hell is he doing here? I told him not to come, knocked him out, and stole his phones, so he couldn’t call Ruby._

Then he watched something that looked and sounded like his baby brother raise its hand and use its mind to kill Alistair in a matter of seconds. It was unnatural and wrong. It reminded Dean of what the Yellow-eyed demon told him right after he’d sold his soul. Was who he brought back with the deal really Sam? What if it hadn’t been? What if this confirmed something he’d been trying to ignore or explain away since Sam had come back? What if he couldn’t get through to Sam no matter what he did? He had no idea how to talk to Sam now that he’d seen him do something like that. It changed something in their dynamics. Sam just killed the demon that had dominated all of Dean’s nightmares in Hell and out, and Sam had done it with what seemed like no effort. Not even Cas, an angel that stormed into Hell to get Dean, could beat Alistair one-on-one, but Sam had with his mind?

He’d needed the reprieve Beth gave him by distracting Sam with getting Cas down. She still believed he could get through to Sam, but he wasn’t sure. This put a dent in his confidence on that. He wouldn’t be able to do anything about it as long as Sam was chugging the demon juice. This obviously meant that Sam was back on it and not just today for Alistair. Beth had told him she suspected it a little over a week ago when Alistair hadn’t had any impact on Sam in that graveyard, but Sam had been clean for so long that Dean had hoped that this time Sam’s promise to stay off it had been for real. Turns out that Sam hadn’t been clean. Maybe he never had been, or maybe it started when Beth came on the road with them. Who knew? Sam was too good at hiding it for Dean to know when it started back up again. 

The first thing he wanted to do when he got out of here was start putting plans in place to get Sam detoxed. He might have a chance at getting through to Sam if his brother was more like his Sam than the one he just saw. 

Detox was supposed to be bad for Sam, but maybe if they did it in the next couple of days, it wouldn’t be as bad as what Beth saw on that show. Dean asked Beth what she thought, but but she didn’t answer. Tapping her hand and nudging her yielded nothing, so Dean struggled to push himself onto his side to see if she was still with him. He couldn’t tell just by looking at her, not that he could see much anyway with his eyes now swelling almost shut. Finding a pulse was difficult, because he couldn’t feel his hand. It was numb from the beating he took. Sam just had to get Cas off the wall, and she’d be fine. Just had to wake her up and keep her talking until Cas got here. Dean went back to shaking her and saying her name, but when that didn’t work, he pushed himself closer, wrapped his arm around her, and put his forehead against the side of her head, so he could talk to her. 

“I don’t know if you can hear me in there, Beth, but . . . I’m not mad at you . . . Okay, sometimes you do piss me off on hunts, but that's the only time . . . I just don't want you to be a hunter . . . I never wanted that, but I get it . . . After what I saw today, I don’t know what they did to you, but . . . I think it was bad, and you couldn’t fight back, so you need to now . . . You shouldn’t have made yourself forget it . . . You need to remember why you do what you do, not just feel it . . . That’s what keeps you alive in this life . . . And I’ve got a lot of questions for you . . . the real you. How’d you know about me? How’d you get God to let you down here? All Cas knows is that you found some kind of leverage, but I think that’s crap. You can’t blackmail God. He’d just wipe you out . . . And how much lore do you really know? Bet you know a lot . . . Cas said when you broke out of your cell, you went to the libraries . . . guessing there’s more lore in those than anywhere else . . . And just so you know. I wouldn’t have cared . . . if you’d shown up not knowing how this world works . . . or how to be human . . . not sure what you would’ve done those months I was away, but I wouldn’t have cared if you came down here as is . . . I’m thinking you wouldn’t have started hunting so soon. You may not have known what cars were or how a light switch worked, but you would’ve known all that lore . . . that would’ve helped a whole hell of a lot . . . Maybe you could only choose one way to help out down here; the future or what you learned up there about lore. Not sure you made the right choice if those were your options . . . Cas says that the real you should come back though . . . He doesn’t know when, but I’m thinking maybe it’ll happen if we can stop this thing with Lucifer . . . I don’t want to let you down, but it’s not lookin’ good . . . Listen, Beth . . . about the werewolf hunt . . . you were right . . . you were fine. It was a win . . . don’t know why I tried to bench you or said what I did. Yeah, you’re a freak, but I’m a freak too . . . just hold on a little longer . . . Sam’s almost done getting Cas.” 

He didn’t know if she could hear him, but he felt like he had to do something. Just about the only thing he could manage other than talking was wiping the blood around her mouth away with his sleeve, so that’s what he did next. Now it was almost like when he slept next to her, except then he tried not to let himself get this close. “Beth, I need you to follow through on whatever the hell it is that made you come down here . . . cause you’re not done yet . . . it doesn’t end here, not like this . . . you didn’t pull the kinds of strings you pulled to spend a few months down here . . . And if you really want to be a hunter . . . You gotta learn to keep fighting even when you’ve got nothin’ left . . . that’s what I need you to do now . . . shouldn’t be long.”

He kept talking to her in spurts and stopping to check her or make her a little more comfortable. He wondered what the hell was taking Sam and Cas so long, but he kept his attention on her. Maybe it was too little, too late, but he didn’t want to let himself think that she’d died right beside him without him even knowing it. He was in the middle of rambling about what they’d do after he got her out of there when he felt warm all over, and like he hadn’t been hit by a truck. Cas must’ve healed him. 

“Cas, bring her back . . . you brought me back, so I know you’ve got the juice to do it,” Dean said while he sat up to look at him.

“Dean, I –“

Dean cut him off with a threat. “If you want me to stop your damn Apocalypse, then you bring her back.”

He heard Beth exhaled a quick laugh before she said in a wispy British accent, “I’m not dead . . . I don’t want to go on a cart . . . think I’ll go for a walk.” _Monty Python?_

Dean quickly masked how stupid he felt before he looked down at her with a faint smile and said, “Is that the best you’ve got?”

Her forehead crinkled in confusion before she went from looking at the ceiling to him and answered, “Are you kidding me? Sure I cut a few lines out, but that was some of my best work.”


	29. Regrouping

Cas healed Dean and I and made sure we were both okay before saying he needed to go meet Uriel, and Sam wanted to know how Cas expected to take on another angel by himself when he hadn’t been able to do anything about Alistair. Dean told Sam to go wait in the car and that we’d be out in a minute. It came out as an order, so even though Sam protested at first, Dean stuck to what he’d said, and Sam went, but I doubted that would be the end of it. 

Dean waited until Sam was gone and then said, “He wasn’t wrong, Cas. Something tells me Uriel’s gonna be harder than Alistair was.” Cas said he was going to go into the meeting armed with his angel blade and that he’d trained with Uriel for eons, so he knew Uriel’s weaknesses. _Uh, just one problem with that._

“That means he knows yours too, Cas . . . what about Anna?” He hadn’t seen her. I wondered why not.

Dean quickly interjected with, “Wait, can we go back to you having an angel blade? You wanna explain why you didn’t use it on Alistair?” Cas didn’t even bother answering. He just disappeared. 

“Maybe he doesn’t have it on him?”

Dean glanced at where Cas had been standing and said, “Doesn’t matter. I think we would’ve been fine if he’d been gone for the 5 seconds it would’ve taken him to go get it. Instead he let his ass get kicked . . . He has no business going after Uriel alone.” _This is a shout out to the angel, Anna. Castiel needs your help. He’s going through some big philosophical changes that I think you would appreciate, like questioning his superiors, but he won’t get to do that if Uriel kills him._ “Any idea what town we’re in?” Dean told me, so I relayed the message to Anna, and then told Dean what I’d done.

“That works?” I was pretty sure it did. “Yeah, I think so . . . I mean praying is how you get in touch with Cas, right?”

Dean snorted and then said, “Never had him answer one. He usually just shows up whenever he feels like it.” _I think that’s about to change._

We turned to head to the door, and I said, “So, you’re not mad?” I didn’t want him to get angry now that he’d had time to process what I’d done with Alistair.

He shook his head and said, “Beth, I might get pissed off and say shit I don’t mean, but it’s because we have a difference of opinion on this one thing. You know I’ve got your back, and I guess I’m gonna have to get used to you having mine. I can’t promise it won’t come up again . . . but I can honestly say being mad at you didn’t cross my mind once today.” _Okay._

“I don’t know if I’ve ever said it, but thanks . . . for looking out for me. You have since I got here, and I may not always need it or think I need, but I appreciate it all the same. I know I don’t always make it easy, and that won’t change, so I’m sure you’ll have plenty of chances to show me you care by getting mad at stuff I do that could get me killed.” Dean exhaled a laugh, and I added, “But at least I’ll keep things interesting.” 

“That’s one way to look at it. You know I used to think I’d go out bloody, but now I think with you around, I’ll go out having a heart attack . . . almost had one when you told Alistair to do his worst." I smiled, and he said, “Don’t do that again.” _No problem._

“Okay. He’s dead. I promise I won’t do that with Alistair again.”

Dean rolled his eyes, and then his shoulders dropped before he said, “Did you see it?”

“No, I was watching you.” He looked down at me, while he held the door open, so I said, “As soon as I saw Sam, I knew what was going to happen, but in the show I watched, you didn’t see him do it . . . You were already unconscious by then, so I wanted to see what your reaction was to find out what kind of damage control I had to do when I was over.”

Dean shook his head and exhaled a slow breath. “I need to get him into rehab. It’ll take us a couple of days to get to Bobby's. Don’t look for any cases that he’ll want to take. It’ll keep us from getting there faster.” Okay. I could do that. 

As soon as we got back to the motel, Sam took off. He complained the whole way back about how Dean didn’t appreciate his gift. Maybe Dean couldn’t look at him the same way right now, but he hadn’t actually said anything about it. I didn’t really want to be pulled into it, so I put my headphones on to drown him out even though the drive wasn’t that long. At least I finally got to eat, take a shower, and brush my teeth after we got back. When I was done, Cas was back. “Did you ask Anna to help me?” From the looks of him, he’d needed it.

“I did . . . It’s the only way I knew for sure you’d win.”

Cas sat on one of the beds before saying, “Because that’s what happened before?” I nodded, and he relaxed a little. “She would not have been there if you hadn’t done that . . . You made the future you saw happen.” _Yes and no._

“It wasn’t exactly the same, but not everything about the future needs to be changed.” He said he’d have to think about it and then said he had some questions he wanted to ask me. 

“Yeah, sure Cas, but I have a question I want to ask you too. Let me ask it while I clean some of those cuts. I know you’ll heal, but some of them look bad, and helping you look presentable is the least I can do after you healed me twice today.” He declined the offer of letting me help him, but I grabbed a couple of towels and stuff from the first aid kit anyway and told him that he could ask me his questions if he let me help him first, so he nodded and Dean grumbled something I couldn’t quite hear about wasting things from the first aid kit before going to sit on the other bed. 

“When you came up to me in that barn . . . it seemed like you recognized me. I think we met in Heaven. Is that right?”

He looked sad while he glanced at me before he looked down and said, “I met you twice. You were running from Prison Security the first time and hid behind me until they passed. I didn’t stop them to let them know you were there. Heaven’s prison is meant for angels, not humans, and your soul is one that should be protected. It is innocent, and yet you have known true suffering.” The weight that I felt from my time in Heaven, the reason I always felt like I had to stay on the move . . . what he’d just said was confirmation that there was a reason for it.

I moved to Cas’s other side and said, “What happened the second time we met, Cas?”

“You left moments before the security detail came back to ask me if I had seen what they were chasing earlier. I told them I had, but didn’t know where you went. They told me I was not to tell anyone what I had seen and said that I was to detain you and report it to them if I saw you again, or I would be punished for disobedience. I didn’t see you again until weeks later when you stepped out of the shadows of a darkened corridor. I didn’t know why you were there, but I continued to walk to my destination so that I might deny knowledge of it if questioned. I only stopped after I had gone by, because you spoke to me. You said I’d passed the final exam, and you were glad to see that your faith in me had not been misplaced. I asked what made you have faith in me, and you said that you’d been keeping an eye on me for years. Then you told me that there was a mission I was going to be assigned to soon, and you would ensure that I was in charge of that mission. That is a great honor. I did not deserve it for my inaction in that corridor. I did not think I deserved it then, and I do not think it now,” he paused to look at me until he realized he couldn’t argue with me about something I didn’t remember. 

When Cas bowed his head this time, he said, “The last thing you said was that if I wanted to continue to defy orders in the future, I needed to work on hiding what I thought from other angels. When I turned around to question what you meant, you were gone, and I could not find you again. It was not until after you had been sent down here that I was given my orders to retrieve Dean, and then Joshua summoned me to the garden to tell me that was the mission that you had been speaking of when we met, and he told me what I told Dean about you . . . I still do not know what exam it is that I passed.” 

Dean beat me to the explanation on that one. “She was vetting you. If she had her eye on you for years, that’s what got you past the first stage. The second stage was finding out what you’d do when you saw her being chased by security . . . pretty obvious most of you guys wouldn’t have hidden her from them. They had the authority to give you an order and punish you if you didn’t follow it, so to get the job, she had to know if you’d do the right thing or follow their orders. You kept on walkin’ and didn’t turn her in, so you did the right thing. If you did that up there, she knew you’d do it down here. That’s why she said you passed the exam and got you the promotion.” It sounded like something I would do. I wondered if that meant that there wasn’t much of a difference between my personality up there and the one I had on Earth. Maybe I’d been wrong about me being a complete fake because of my programming. Underneath it all, I was still the same, which was nice to know. 

I finished making Cas look presentable, and then it was Cas’s turn to ask the questions. After all of that, the first question he asked me was one that I didn’t know. It was about what other angels in his garrison had already signed on with Uriel. When he looked disappointed that I didn’t know, Dean took over and said that didn’t matter as much as the fact that the higher ups wanted Lucifer to be let out so that the Apocalypse could happen. He filled Cas in on everything I’d told him about Zachariah and everything else that I knew about angels from season 4. There was a lot there, because Dean and I had talked about it a lot, and when he was done Cas wanted to know how he knew all of that.

Dean nodded towards me, and Cas gave me a look before he said, “How have you found a way around what I have done?”

I smiled and said, “Sometimes I get a feeling, like there’s something happening they should know about, and I help Dean come up with the right questions to ask me. If he asks those, I answer them, and then when someone or something important comes up in that answer, I talk about that person or thing and just keep going.” Cas sighed, in defeat, so I changed the subject by asking why I had a hard time retrieving much about what happened after Lucifer was released, but still knew things that happened after that as long as they weren’t Apocalypse related. He said it was because the information about Lucifer wouldn’t be needed if we stopped Lucifer from rising, but things like the devil’s trap bullets were something that could be used at any time. 

“So, you admit that we can change the future?” Cas hung his head before explaining.

“You were shown these things in seasons, as you call them, for a reason. Perhaps the endings of these seasons can be changed, but I still think the odds are insurmountably against you being able to do so.”

Dean sat forward and countered by saying, “The only reason we haven’t been able to stop anything is cause nobody will listen to us, Cas. Sam won’t. You won’t. Give it a try and see what happens.” Cas asked Dean what he would have him do, and Dean said, “For starters, you need to leave Heaven now, so they can’t reprogramme you. You can’t trust Zachariah, but you also don’t know who Uriel was able to recruit . . . Could be anybody up there. Best to stay clear of all of them for now. And is there some kind of a hex bag you can give us to keep us off of Heaven’s radar? Something like what we have for demons, cause you and Uriel haven’t had any trouble finding me and Sam no matter where we go.” 

Cas sat back and said, “I can mark you, so that you will not be found.” Yeah, that worked. Cas put the markings on our ribs, and it stung, a little like 1000 bees stinging my chest at once, but it was over before it really began.

"That’s it? We’re good now?” Cas answered Dean by saying that there were still agents of Heaven everywhere, but it would keep angels from being able to pinpoint our exact location. _So no more angels we didn’t want to see for a while? Brilliant._

Before Cas left to go find Sam, so he could put the markings on him too, Dean disappeared for about 10 minutes and came back with a pre-paid phone from the garage down the road. He put our numbers into it before giving it to Cas and showing him how it worked. Then he told Cas if he needed anything, he could call, and we’d help or let him know where we were if he wanted to find us. While Cas examined the phone, Dean added that he knew how important it was to have family, and he knew that Cas was walking away from his until this was over, but he reminded Cas that Anna was out there, and she’d just saved his ass, so if he teamed up with her, there’d be at least one other angel that wasn’t in Heaven, who would watch his back, and that knew helping humans was the right thing to do. 

After Cas left, I asked Dean why he did that for Cas. He’d been annoyed with him in spurts all day. Dean threw the covers on his bed back and shrugged. “I didn’t know why you were acting like he’s an old friend, but now I think you remember being up there more than I thought, and maybe he’s the only angel you ever saw that did the right thing. And he’s right . . . what he did wasn’t much. Says a lot about the other angels . . . And he just turned his back on all of them. That makes me like him more . . . There’s room if you want.“ 

It was the first time he’d offered, since the siren case, and I still wanted to be near him after what happened with Alistair, so I climbed in and said, “Even if I kick you?”

He got in next to me and gave me a grin while he said, “Hasn’t happened since that first night. Now you just spend half the night talkin’ to me. Last time you made me promise to take you whitewater rafting, but you said I had to find a raft that was made of doughnuts, or you wouldn’t go.” I laughed and said that wasn’t true, but he stuck with it and said, “Why would I make that up? You never give away the stuff you know on the future. I checked.” I told him the next time it happened he’d have to record it, because I didn’t believe that he wouldn’t have brought it up before then.


	30. The Prophecies

Cas kept calling to tell them how many seals were left. It was a countdown to how long they had before Sam went nuclear as far as Dean was concerned. Things felt like they were getting worse. Ever since Alistair, Sam had spent more and more time going out to ‘research.’ He always came back with another case, but it was obvious that Sam was using the ‘research’ as a cover for what he was really doing, and it was a pain in the ass. Dean he was going along with the cases Sam brought back, because Sam woud get suspicious if he turned a case down, but this was getting ridiculous. It’d started the night that Sam came back after killing Alistair and hadn’t let up in the last two weeks. Sam would have a new case for them before they’d even finished the last one. If it didn’t stop in the next week, Dean was seriously thinking about knocking Sam out and dragging him to Bobby’s. 

And then there was the problem of what happened when Sam was done with detox? Would he go straight back to Ruby and the demon blood? Maybe . . . probably. Dean had been working on that one, so he broached the subject with Beth after Sam went out to do . . . something. Dean didn’t even listen to the excuses anymore.

“After Sammy’s clean, we have to sell him on an alternative to ganking Lilith, life without the possibility of parole, like you said . . . A devil’s trap bullet worked on this Abaddon, and then Sammy and me just cut her up and separated the parts, right? So what if we did that with Lilith? She wouldn’t be dead, but she wouldn’t be a problem anymore.”

“And we already know Sam is immune to her white light killing power, so he could get close enough to do it . . . if he’s on board.” His first choice was getting rid of Lilith with Sam, but if Sam kept going back on the demon blood, just so he could kill Lilith, Dean would get rid of Sam’s target himself, so Sam wouldn’t have an excuse not to stop.

“So, you’re going to let Sam have a chance to fall off the wagon before she’s gone? You could just leave him locked up and do it yourself.” He hadn’t expected her to say that. To him it was a given that as soon as Sam was clean, Sam deserved a chance to get in on this, so he said that, and she glanced at him before she ducked her head, took a deep breath, and her body language went all submissive . . . It was the exact same thing she did when she told him about Adam, but this time it was her opinion. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to piss him off. 

“He has you and him both convinced that this is about Lilith, and maybe some of it is, but he’s an addict now . . . Would you trust a heroin addict forced into detox to stick with it?” _No, but this is Sam._

“I won’t cut him out unless I don’t have any other choice.”

Beth bit her bottom lip before she said, “Well, then when he gets done with detoxing you need to talk to him. He needs to tell you why he’s really been mad at you since you came back and why he feels like he has to use his powers to overcome his perceived weaknesses. They both stem from the same thing.”

Dean bowed his head and said, “Yeah, what’s that?” She gave him a look that said he already knew the answer to that, and he found himself saying, “My deal and how it turned out.” 

“But he needs to be the one to say it . . . And he’ll be pissed about the detox, so he won’t want to say anything to you for a while after it’s over. Maybe it’ll take so long for him to come around that Lilith will break all of the seals, except for the last one, and when that one doesn’t break, because she’s not dead, maybe he’ll finally get that she’s the final seal.” So keep Sam in rehab until they could prove that Lilith was the final seal? And talk through Sam’s crap, like a real detox program with counseling? He didn’t know how to do that.

“What about the people Lilith kills in the meantime?” Beth opened her mouth to give him an answer, but before she could, he said, “No. You and Cas aren’t going to take care of her yourselves.” She wasn’t going anywhere near Lilith. 

Beth decided to change the subject by saying, “We’ll figure it out. Anyway . . . I wanted to ask you about something, but there hasn’t been a good time with everything else going on.” When people say they want to ask you something, it never ends well. “Why do the demons keep calling me North Star?” She held off on that a lot longer than he’d thought she would. Kinda got used to thinking she wouldn’t ask. He pulled out a slip of paper he’d been keeping in his wallet and handed it to her. Cas gave it to him when he met him in the barn and told him he had to protect what was on it, because nobody else could know what it said. Memorizing them was a bad idea if angels and demons could read your mind, so he’d decided to hold onto them until he was ready to show them to Beth, but he hadn’t really read them again. The only problem was that he couldn’t forget how Cas had explained them to him, so he didn’t say anything about prophecies or think about prophecies when he was around angels and demons and hoped that was enough to keep them from digging around in his head for them. So far, it seemed to be working. 

_1\. Two souls forged by fire and light, the North Star’s fate lies with that of the righteous man for they will be linked in life and death. 2. Humanity will perish in a war to usurp the crown unless those that remain are shielded under the hunter and his guiding star. 3. The knowledge of the North Star threatens creation as betraying rulers on all sides seek it. 4. The North Star shall guide the righteous man away from the darkness of Cain._

Beth read through it and asked him what it was while she handed it back to him. “They’re prophecies. Guess they’re part of set. Add in the one about me being the first seal, and we know 5 out of 10. Nobody knows all 10. And nobody can know we have these.”

Beth took the paper back to have another look and said, “What does any of this have to do with me?” _Uh, well._

“You’re the star part . . . It’s why the demons keep calling you North Star.”

She gave the paper back to him again and said, “Could just as easily be Sam, couldn’t it? And what do these prophecies even mean? They’re like horoscopes in the ambiguous department.” Not if you knew an angel that could help you translate. 

“Cas said that _if_ we’re linked in life and death it means that if one of us dies, the other one does, and whatever happens to one of us after we die happens to the other one . . . and I don’t know what you found in Heaven, but Cas said you leveraged something to get down here. At first I thought blackmail, but God would’ve just wiped you out if it was that. Now I’m thinking Cas just meant you used something to your advantage and made a deal. You read a whole lot of things up there, and maybe you offered God something to get down here, but maybe one of the things you read that had nothing to do with what you offered God was important enough to cause the war these are talking about . . . Cas doesn’t think they’re about the Apocalypse.” 

“Because you’re supposed to stop that?”

Dean nodded, and Beth said, “And these are what you haven’t wanted to tell me since we met?” Dean looked away from her, and Beth said, “I’m not mad . . . I just feel bad that you’ve wasted any time thinking about these with everything else you’ve got going on. They’re nothing. I’m more worried about finding something for dinner. I’m thinking Chinese, so you can tell me if the prophecies we get from there are real too.” 

_Fucking fortune cookies? She tells me stuff about the future every day._ He wasn’t a fan of thinking these prophecies couldn’t be changed, but he had to at least accept they were a possibility, so he could change them, especially since the first prophecy he found out about was the one with him being the first seal, and that one happened . . . and she was the one that fucking told him that one, so she should buy into this more than she was. “It’ll mean you’ll have to back off on trying to protect me on hunts. If you don’t and get yourself killed because we’re ‘linked’, I’ll die anyway, and vice versa. No more fighting . . . One problem down.” _Why isn’t she taking this seriously?_ She stood up and said she was going for food, but when she passed in front of him, he grabbed her hand to make her stop. “Cas said these were about you and me, and the demons know it’s you on sight, Beth . . . I don’t know how, but they do.” 

Beth looked down at his hand, so he let her go, and then she said, “Demons can read minds just like angels can.” No, it was more than that.

“The last thing on my mind when we were with Alistair was these prophecies, but maybe you’re right. Maybe he got it from me. How do you explain the demon you trapped in the cabin calling you North Star all night? I wasn’t there, and you didn’t know about these, but even if you did, I’m guessing you can block them the same way you can block angels from reading your mind, so how the hell did he know to call you that?”

Beth took a long slow breath before saying, “Maybe it’s in the 5 prophecies we don’t know. Maybe one of them says something about me knowing the future, or maybe there’s supplemental material that’s not in the prophecies that lets them know, like the supplemental material that let the angels know who you are, but I still don’t think these are anything to worry about. Other than the one about the first seal and you stopping the Apocalypse, none of these are familiar to me. They weren’t in that show I watched.” Yeah, but she wasn’t in that freaking show she watched. She didn’t want to stick around and talk about it though, because she started heading for the door again, and he didn’t know why.

When Beth got to the door, she paused and looked down like she did when she had a feeling she knew something, but couldn’t quite reach it. Whatever it was made her come back over to him, put her hands on his knees, and bend down to his eye level before she said, “Dean, there are some things you need to know, but they won’t happen for a long time. If you do what I say, they won’t happen, so don’t freak out.” _No questions to unlock this one?_ She waited until he agreed to her terms and leaned forward to whisper whatever it was into his ear. When she was done, she leaned back and rested her forehead on his before asking him to promise he’d do what she’d asked him to do when he had the chance. He nodded, so she said, “And you won’t forget no matter what happens?” It was the one thing he couldn’t let happen. He wouldn’t forget, so he shook his head to let her know he wouldn’t. 

Most of the time it was hard to control himself around her, but it was nearly impossible in that moment, because of what she’d said and how she’d chosen to tell him and with her being right there . . . He didn’t have to struggle with it for long, because she smiled and said, “Good,” before stepping back and telling him she wasn’t sure what she wanted now that she thought about it, but she’d bring him back something she knew he’d like. After she’d gone, he thought about what she’d said for a few minutes while looking at the prophecies in his hand and got up to burn them in the bathroom sink. They needed to be destroyed so no one else could read them. Whether she believed in them or not, she just fulfilled one, and he didn’t know what that meant about being able to stop the rest.


	31. Melt Down

When I got back to the room with dinner, Sam was there with yet another case he wanted to do. Dean couldn’t turn it down. If he did, Sam would think something was up. It looked like it might be a poltergeist, so taking a couple of extra days to check it out wouldn’t hurt if it made tricking Sam into rehab easier. Was tricking him into it right? Well, it wasn’t very nice, but was it wrong? If you asked the people whose blood he was drinking, I’m going to guess that they wouldn’t want him drinking it anymore than they wanted to be possessed. If the meatsuits were already dead, then I guess they wouldn’t care, but what about the rest of the planet? If he kept doing this, he would kill Lilith, and then Lucifer would make an appearance. I wasn’t all that optimistic that Sam would stay off of the demon blood in the long term if he was forced to quit, but talking hadn’t worked so far.

It’s not that I wasn’t sympathetic to Sam, but the longer we put this off, the harder going through detox would be for him on a physical level, so hurrying it along would hopefully make it easier on him. Mentally, there was a long road he and Dean had to travel together to get back to where they used to be, and the sooner they got started down it, the better, but that couldn’t happen until he was clean. 

When we got where we were going for the case, Dean and Sam went into the comic book store, while I stayed outside to call Bobby and tell him that we’d be another few days. I wasn’t on the phone very long, but when I turned around, Sam and Dean each had several paperback books they were taking to the car. “What’d you guys find?”

They glanced at each other, and Sam said, “The case is a bust, but we found something else . . . Turns out there’s this book series called Supernatural, and it’s about us.” _Huh. You don’t say._

“Supernatural? As in the name of the show I used to watch?” Sam laughed uncomfortably before ducking inside the car with his books. Dean quickly followed suit by getting in the driver’s side, but I wanted to see what else that store had, so I said I was going to go have a look and came back out with a couple of graphic novels and a few more _Supernatural_ books that they hadn’t picked up. They’d been hidden in the back. I’d had to sweet talk the guy behind the counter to get them. They were his favorites, I guess, and he didn’t want to let them go. I told him I’d get the author to sign them and mail them back to him when I was done, and he agreed. I got his address. Now I just had to make sure that I followed through on it.

After we got found a motel, I helped Sam look for the author online. Carver Edlund. It sounded like a pseudonym if I’ve ever heard one. We could look up his publisher and find out his real name tomorrow. “Where are mine?” Dean ignored me while he read whatever book he was reading. _Wait. Did he hide them?_

Sam backed me up by saying, “Come on, Dean. She should read some of them. Maybe the same thing she saw on that show is what’s written in these. There has to be a connection.”

Looking around, Dean picked up one of the books that was lying on the bed next to him and said, “Here.” He held onto it a little longer than he should have, but eventually let go, and I settled in next to him for my read. I felt him glance at me every so often, and as I read further along, I could understand why. Rachel was in these books. 

It was the first book, so it was her introduction too. She had a quick temper, and she was mean about it. Some might think she was a poorly written female character created by someone who thought the best way to portray a strong woman was to have her be a complete bitch, but apparently she was real. She didn’t have much of a sense of humor, but people loved her. She was confident and sociable . . . really sociable . . . She seemed like she expected people to notice her when she walked into a room, and they did . . . You’d think a hunter wouldn’t want to stand out from the crowd, but she craved that kind of attention. I didn’t understand how people could gravitate towards someone with even worse personality traits than mine . . . Nor did I understand how the fuck Bobby, Sam, Ellen, and Jo, could think that she was a saint. She wasn’t. 

When I read between the lines, I saw that there was also selfishness there when she hunted, because she wouldn’t save anyone if it put her at too much risk. She held back on it, which was okay, I guess. To do this job, you don’t have to be willing to die to save someone else, and maybe that was the wiser choice, but it seemed like a red flag given the two men she’d been working alongside. 

Apparently, she was a complete bad ass with her hunting skills, if not her self-sacrifice, and it meant I had a lot to live up to now that I knew. She used sex appeal to get her way a lot of the time. I wouldn’t be able to pull that off. I’d probably fall over or run out the door if I got the kind of attention she got . . . From almost their first meeting, she and Sam clicked, and she was calling him Sammy and getting away with it by the end of the book. If I called him that even now after being around for almost 9 months, I’d probably get accidentally on purpose shot on our next hunt. 

She and Dean had just recently gotten together based on the description in the book. She was kind of perfect for him in some ways and not in others. They had similar interests in music and cars and obviously in hunting and weapons and things, but it all seemed superficial. They were also really passionate. I had to skip over a quite a few pages throughout the book that made me feel more than a little uncomfortable given the timeshare deal she and I had on this body of mine. 

Rachel and Dean also argued a lot and picked fights over the stupidest things. If he needed more from her on an emotional level because of his worries about where his dad was or his disappointment at Sam going back to Stanford, she couldn’t give it to him with all of her own emotional baggage. She shut down and just walked away, and that was the end of it. Despite all of that, there was almost a sense of desperation between them to have someone else who knew what they were going through and to ensure that they wouldn’t have to do the job alone. 

When I finished, I asked if Dean knew where the books I’d bought were, and he said, “No.” _Freaking liar. I know you hid them._ Well, he hadn’t hidden all of them, because Sam tossed me one and asked if I got anything from the first book.

“Uh, yeah . . . you know how it is if you’ve read a book, but you haven’t read it for years, and then you pick it up thinking it’s a new book until you get into it, and you’re like, ‘I know this,’ but you forget the details . . . it’s like that, but also . . . Rachel wasn’t in the TV show I watched, so –“

Sam cut me off. “What?” _How does he not know that?_ The look on Dean’s face said the same thing I was thinking.

“She wasn’t in the show at all, so anything about her is going to be brand new for me.”

Sam looked confused and said, “Don’t you think that’s weird?”

“Yeah, I do. I –“ Dean made a play for the book in my hands, and it was the one I really wanted to read, No Rest for the Wicked. It’s the book where Dean and Rachel both die. I wanted to know how things went down for her. It was my fault she was dead. I was not going to give that book to Dean without a fight, but I didn’t have to put up much of one, because Sam was our chaperone and told him to let me read it. I wish I hadn’t. 

It was almost 3 years after the first book and things had evolved or devolved so much between the three of them that their relationships were almost unrecognizable from what they had been. She and Sam were close, much closer than even the first book had indicated they might become. By this book, they seemed like they were the couple. I’d had no idea that they’d been this tight. 

The more I read, the angrier I got. _Was she like this the whole year?_ There was a wedge between she and Dean, and it was filled with her contempt and his guilt for what he’d done. On his last night, she said that him dying and roasting in Hell was the only way he could make anything up to her, but only if she was the one who got to ‘gank’ him when he came back a demon. Then she went into a long list of insults or things she despised about him. Those pages were a big red flag for me. There’s being angry as you go through the stages of grief, and then there’s intentionally trying to destroy someone’s spirit, and that’s what she did. 

She said all of that to Dean and went straight to Sam so they could cry over their ‘mutual loss’ if plans didn’t go the way they were supposed to go the next day. Sam tried denying that they’d lose Dean, and she kept bringing up that it was a possibility . . . Their little ‘woe’s me’ bonding session left Dean alone on his last night. That was another red flag for me. Something was off about her, and all I had to do was read about her to know it. And she was a fucking good liar if she actually managed to make Sam think she cared about what happened to Dean during whatever the hell it was they were talking about. There were pages missing, so I couldn’t read all of it. And why the fuck did Sam or Bobby or anyone that cared about Dean let her do that to him? I was almost as angry with them as I was Rachel.

I’d never planned on reading about when Dean died. I was going to skip over that part, but now I didn’t care about when she did, so I stopped reading. He went to Hell and the last few memories he’d had were of someone he cared about saying that he belonged there. The worst part was that she knew what she was doing to him, and she did it to him anyway. She wanted him to feel like he deserved what he got down there. He’s not the type to want to talk about things and puts up a front like he’s fine, but he had to have been terrified as the clock got closer to midnight, and he had to deal with that on top of the guilt he always felt and that she was feeding into and making worse.

Suddenly, it was like I couldn’t breathe. Everything I had been building myself up to think about this long lost sister was complete bullshit. A part of me that had been taken from me the day I was born had done these things to him. I felt defiled. I had pieces of me missing, and the missing parts were used to create a monster named Rachel. I thought that all of the shit parts of me must’ve been given to her, and I was glad she was a selfish bitch who held onto them, because I didn’t want them back. And I was glad that I’d sacrificed her, so I could take her place. I hoped that I could keep her from ever joining back up with my half of our soul, because what if she came back, and I didn’t have a choice in the matter the next time it came up? She was awful and bitter. I never wanted to be like that. I needed to do whatever it took to keep that from happening, because I liked who I was without her even if I was a bit odd. 

I stared at the closed book for a moment, but I couldn’t look at Dean. I was too ashamed to look at him. I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I got up holding the book, took it to the bathroom, pulled out my Zippo and set the fucking thing on fire before I threw it into the sink and let it burn. _Sorry, guy in the comic book store. I’ll get you a new one with all the pages in it._ I couldn’t do anything to her because of where she was, but if she was watching, I hoped she now knew exactly how I felt about her. 

Then I went to my bag by the door and pulled out my unopened, but bought 9 months ago, stale pack of cigarettes. ‘Rachel never smoked,’ I thought with some satisfaction. Technically, I hadn’t either since my life was a lie before I got here, but I wore nicotine patches, so I had an inclination towards the drug. As I pulled the door of the room open and took a step out, I paused when Dean asked me to wait while he scrambled off the bed. I would never be able to undo what she did. He probably believed he deserved to be treated the way he had been, and I didn’t know how to fix that. I couldn’t force myself to look at him when he came up behind me. Instead, I kept my back to him and hung my head, while I said, “There’s something I have to do . . . alone. I’ll be back later,” before I walked off and felt even worse, because isn’t that what she did? I didn’t want to shut him out, but I had to work through this on my own. I’d tell him later if he really wanted to know.

The something that I had to do alone was have a melt down. I went to the nearest liquor store and found myself a nice fifth of vodka, because vodka was my favorite, and Rachel apparently didn’t like it. I took it to a quiet bench in a little park not far from the motel and prepared myself for a long night. After opening the cap, I raised my bottle to the heavens, hoping that she was watching, and smirked while I said, “Cas told me that you didn’t know why I was the original. It’s because even as half of myself, I never needed you, but you clearly needed me, or you wouldn’t have been such a fuck up. If you weren’t a fuck up, I wouldn’t have felt the need to take your place. You can keep your fucking soul, because I don’t want it back. Consider it my gift to you, since it’s mine to give you in the first place, you spiteful cow,” before taking a huge gulp and then lit a cigarette. 

The cigarette was exactly the way I remembered them being. _Oh, cigarettes, how I have missed thee. Well, this confirms I got the real deal as far as vices go while I was being taught how to be human . . . Still need to try sex out, but I’m pretty sure that was real too, or at least it better have been._ I looked up at the sky again after I had another couple of shots worth of vodka and lit another cigarette. “How’s not having a body working out for you? I love that I can do whatever the fuck I want to my body now, and I will destroy it before I ever let you have it again, so you’re never getting it back.” I stayed there and drank and smoked and taunted her until I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than controlling the spins and eventually passed out on that bench. 

When I woke up the next morning, I was back in the motel room asleep on one of the beds. I don’t know how I got there, but I was alone. It’s probably best that they weren’t there, because I had to run to the bathroom and vomit almost straight away. Brushing my teeth and taking a shower almost helped my dire state. By the time they got back, I’d thrown on my last clean pieces of clothing, taken a couple of aspirin, and was wondering how thin my blood must be with the aspirin added to the alcohol. I was imagining it swooshing along too fast through my veins. Crazy thoughts, I know, but it helped keep the nausea at bay. I imagine what they saw was a crazy girl wearing sunglasses with the curtains drawn and sitting with her back against the headboard in the darkest corner of the room while she stared at whatever boring thing was on the TV. I didn’t even look at them when they came in. I couldn’t. How do you explain setting fire to a book about other people’s lives?

Dean came and sat down on the bed next to me with a bag of take out, so he wasn’t avoiding me at least. He arched one of his eyebrows while offering me something from the bag, and I shook my head slowly, which made him smirk and say, “You’re sure. Smell that cheeseburger heavy on the mushrooms just the way you like it.” _Jerk. I could already smell it just fine. I don’t need it waved in front of my face._ I was giving him to a fast count of three to get it out of my face before . . . 3 . . . I snatched it from him and threw it across the room. It bounced off the wall and landed on the edge of the dresser a couple of seconds before the bun of the burger toppled onto the floor.

Then I looked at Dean and deadpanned, “Think I’ll pass,” before I went back to watching the TV and smiled briefly against my will. Dean grinned as he reached into another bag he’d put on the floor and tossed me a bottle of water and a pack of crackers before launching into his bacon cheeseburger.

He finally said, “We found out where the guy who writes the books lives. We’ll head out once we’re done,” before taking another bite as if nothing was wrong. This whole ‘let’s pretend we’re fine and not talk about it’ thing really works.


	32. The Winchester Gospel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is one paragraph that starts in bold print. That paragraph and the following one may be triggering for some people.

Dean hadn’t wanted Beth to read the first book, but it’d gone okay, so he was going to let the second one go until he caught sight of the summary on the back while she was talking to Sam. He definitely didn’t want her to read this one. That’s why he’d freaking hid it, but then Sam had to butt in, and Dean couldn’t come up with a good enough reason for why she shouldn’t read it if he didn’t want to make Sam suspicious of her again. 

She stopped reading towards the end of the book and snapped it shut. She was tense and wouldn’t look at him. Was this about Rachel dying, because if it was, he could talk to her about that, but if it was about when he died, then that was gonna be harder for him to do. She got up, and it looked like she was going to go out. If she needed space, he’d give it to her, but then he saw her taking out the cigarettes she kept hidden in her bag. She hadn’t smoked once since she’d been here . . . not after he told her she was staying here for good or after he told her how her entire life hadn’t been real or after their fight or after Alistair. He went to go with her, and she told him she had something she needed to do on her own, so he let her go. She must’ve been blindsided by something. After she’d gone, he turned back, planning to look through the book to see if he could find what’d upset her, and that’s when he saw the fire Sam was trying to put out in the bathroom sink. Things were definitely worse than he’d thought.

Sam didn’t get why she’d set fire to a book about them . . . Dean was at as much of a loss on why she’d done it as Sam, but he had a better idea of why she’d take whatever was in these books more personally than she should for someone who wasn’t in them. He just couldn’t tell Sam why until after Ruby was dead. Instead he said that he had no idea what was going on with her, which was mostly true, and Sam told him that he should go out and look for her. Sam may still not be her biggest fan, but he seemed to think she was okay to have around now for some reason, so at least this hadn’t ruined that. Dean would go look for her, but he’d give her time. It’s what he’d want if he needed to be on his own.

Several hours later he was done waiting. She was never usually gone for this long. When he finally found her, she was sitting on a park bench and talking to the sky. She’d drunk way too much, and it looked like she’d smoked the first pack and was on another one now. She wouldn’t last much longer, so he kept watch from the shadows to make sure the situation didn’t go from bad to worse if anybody came along and saw her as an easy target sitting there on her own. When she laid down on the bench hugging the nearly half-empty bottle like a teddy bear, he went and picked her up to carry her back to the room, and she mumbled, “She’s a monster, Dean . . . She’s bad . . . Read it again . . . Lots of red flags.”

He didn’t really think she was talking to him until she lightly touched his face to get his attention. “Can’t read it again. You burnt the book.”

He looked down at her after she quietly said, “I was sending her a message . . . It’s what I think of her . . . Poor shop man . . . I have to get him a new book.” _What shop man? The comic book guy?_

“Thought you bought your books.”

She sheepishly shook her head and whispered, “No . . . I have to mail them back . . . signed by author.” He smiled and told her they’d get a new book and send it to the guy, so she rested her head on his shoulder. About a minute later, she mumbled, “She isn’t me . . . But she is me . . . the bad me . . . I’m sorry I was mean to you,” and fell asleep. 

The next morning, he and Sam left to see if they could find the publisher and get the name of the author. A part of him worried that when they got back Beth was going to be gone. Best-case scenario, she’d be hanging out with the hobos at the park or a bar. Worst-case scenario, she’d just be gone. What he wasn’t expecting when they got back was the sight of her sitting on the bed, looking pale, but put together. It got to him. It was the fitted-in-all-the-right-places black suit she was wearing now that she was out of clean clothes, the sunglasses he always thought looked good on her, and her hair that never looked tousled and sexy the way it did now. 

It’s not that he didn’t normally find her attractive, because he did. It’s just that he hadn’t expected her to be there, or for her to look as good as she did, so it made his attraction to her 10 times worse. He had to stop himself from checking her out for too long, because she was still his Beth, and it would’ve made her uncomfortable if she caught him. She didn’t know how to deal with that kind of attention without walking away from whatever man gave it to her or hiding behind him if he was nearby, and she didn’t have anyone to hide behind if he was the one doing it. Because he knew her so well, it gave him an idea on how to gauge if she was all right, and it worked . . . her reaction was even better than he’d expected, and at least she smiled, so he knew she would be okay.

Meeting Chuck was an experience. Chuck thought they were psycho fans until Dean said their last name was Winchester and introduced Beth. Chuck said he had never mentioned their last names to anyone and that he had kept Rachel’s name, because he thought it was too confusing to change it to Beth. Beth didn’t react, but Sam looked at Dean to see his reaction, so Dean shrugged like he didn’t know what the guy was talking about. To keep Sam from asking Chuck anything about it, Dean turned his attention to something else, like trying to convince Chuck he wasn’t a god.

When Dean and Sam left to go do laundry, Beth stayed with Chuck to find out how much he knew about her, and it gave Dean the perfect opportunity to find out what happened last night. He took a few pages of Chuck’s latest writings and a few about last night too. He had to know what had set Beth off, because . . . well it was there on a piece of paper, and he hadn’t had time to talk with her about it yet. If he got a jump on it, he could figure out what to say to make it right for her. 

Sam went into the laundromat, while Dean stayed behind in the car to read a couple of pages. Reading through what Beth had been thinking the night before, Dean realized that she had told him what was wrong. He just hadn't really thought it was anything more than drunk ramblings at the time. He still agreed with most of what Rachel had said about him. After he pulled up at Bobby’s with a newly risen Sam riding shotgun, he’d told her that it was his job to keep Sam safe, and he hadn’t been able to do that, so he hadn’t thought he was much good for her either. He’d said it like he’d considered her but had thought she would be better off without him. In truth, she hadn’t factored into his decision at all.

Truth or not, she’d listened to what he had to say and then agreed that he’d never been good enough for her or anyone else. It’s why his family kept leaving or dying to get away from him. The words, “Sam finally had a chance to get out from under your thumb and away from this life, and you just had to pull him back, but it wasn't for him. It was for you,” might have been said before she gave him a list of all the things he’d done wrong and probably would have continued to do wrong if he wasn’t going to be dying soon. Everything she’d called him on was true. 

Dean did think Beth’s conversations with Rachel on that bench were funny and made sense if you knew Beth. It didn’t happen very often, but sometimes Beth acted like a judge, who delivered practical jokes and stole from the defendants as a way of righting some kind of a wrong, and as soon as she got justice, she’d let it go as long as the balance had been reset. Every time it happened, Dean wondered what the Trickster would think of her if they ever met, because their methods were similar, except Beth didn’t kill. Of course in this instance, it was all self-harm, because she was trying to get justice against herself . . . which was just messed up. It was so much easier to think of them as two different people, because they were nothing alike. He could try to let Beth know that he didn’t blame Rachel for anything. Then maybe she wouldn’t feel the need to punish herself for it. 

He wanted to go get Sam’s read on the Chuck situation, so he left the car and joined his brother in the laundromat. Sam wasn’t convinced that Chuck was legit, so Dean read him everything Chuck had written they’d be doing in that laundromat. He’d just said that Beth was having one of her feelings and was about to call him when his phone rang. “Hey, Dean. Chuck’s just had another vision, and I’m getting that familiar vibe. You should come back as soon as you guys can. It’s about Lilith.” He should’ve asked her questions about this case, but he hadn’t thought books about the show she’d watched would have actually been in the show she watched. Talk about being Meta. 

Beth was waiting for them by the door when they got back to Chuck’s. “Ask me some questions, before I tell you what Chuck wrote, so you don’t flip out.” Sam was watching them, and there was no telling what would come out of her mouth once she opened it, so Dean pulled her over to far the corner of the room before asking her how Chuck knew about them. “He’s a prophet, and his books will be known as the Winchester Gospel someday.”

Dean laughed until he saw she was being serious. “The Winchester Gospel?” She nodded, and Dean awkwardly cleared his throat before saying, “Okay, uh, so what’d he just write?”

Beth quickly whispered, “That Lilith is going to be in this town tomorrow and that she and Sam are going to have sex.” Dean’s eyebrows rose as he grabbed Beth’s hand and headed for the stairs.

“Hey, Chuck, we’ve, uh, gotta go to the bathroom. It’s upstairs, right?” He didn’t wait for Chuck’s response before dragging Beth to the top.

“Tell me sex is a metaphor for something that isn’t sex.” Beth looked off to the side, with a look that could only mean, ‘Uh, well . . . “ because it hadn’t been a metaphor, and Dean quickly exclaimed, “Your bedside manner still sucks! It can't be what he wrote. Isn’t she a little –“

Beth shook her head and said, “Chuck wrote that she’s a dental hygienist from Indiana.” _So, it's probably true. Awesome. Why does Sam keep getting his freak on with demons?_

“What’s she doing here?”

Beth looked down the stairs behind her to see if anyone had heard him shouting, before she said, “She’s here to make a deal with Sam. This is her one moment of weakness that I told you about the day we met.” Beth paused to see if he remembered, and yeah, of course he remembered. He remembered everything she’d told him that day. She sure as hell hadn’t said anything about Sam and Lilith getting it on. 

“What’s the deal?” He hadn’t really meant the bedside manner thing, but she didn’t look like she was going to tell him. “Rather have you suck at telling me than not tell me . . . Spill it. What does Lilith want?”

Beth sighed and said, “Lilith will stop breaking seals if she can have yours and Sam’s heads on a stick. She’s Queen of the Crossroads. She won’t do the deal for a kiss. It takes the sex, so what Chuck saw was Sam either about to agree to it or using it to get close enough to try and kill her.” 

That’s why she hadn’t wanted to tell him. She knew what he’d want to do. “Do you really want her to keep running around up here eating babies for breakfast even if it stops The Apocalypse? That’s a terrible deal, and I’ll make sure I tell her that when I track her down and - “

Dean put one of his hands on Beth’s shoulder to get her to stop and smiled briefly before he said, “Are you trying to blackmail me into not taking the deal?”

Beth shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just telling you what I plan on saying to her if nobody’s around to keep me from finding her myself . . . and I was going to remind you that she will still want Sam as part of the deal. He’s the one that scares her.” There’s no way he’d let Lilith have Sam too. And without Sam, there’d be no deal. That was a bust.

“Okay, so how do we get Sam out of his date from Hell?”

Beth smiled and leaned forward conspiratorially. “If Cas weren’t off somewhere else with Anna, he would have told you that if a prophet is put in close proximity to danger, like the danger presented by a demon, then the archangel on the prophet’s shoulder will have to show up to protect him . . . that might be the kind of distraction we need to keep her from killing us when we trap her.”

Dean glanced past her to make sure they were still alone and leaned closer before whispering, “We? Since when are we trapping her?” Beth smiled, and he couldn’t help but smile back before he licked his lips and argued, “You’re not –“

One of her eyebrows arched, and she cut him off. “Do you think she’ll have eyes on me or the archangel?” Didn’t matter.

“What if the archangel has eyes on you? We still don’t know why you were in Heaven.” 

She must’ve bought into that more than he’d thought she would, because she slumped a little and said, “Well, what about Sam? If she’s trapped in front of him, will he tell Ruby what we do to her after that?” Crap. There was no doubt in his mind that Sam would. Sam told Ruby everything.

Beth knew what he was thinking and said, “Ruby will dig her up and put her back together. And that will prove to him that your plan won’t be enough to stop her forever, so he’ll be even more gung-ho about killing her . . . And also the next time you try it, Lilith will know what to expect.” Now it was Dean’s turn to slump. He’d really wanted Sam to be a part of this. 

“What if we trap her, cut her up, and don’t tell Sam where we hide her?” Beth held her breath instead of choosing to answer that one, and Dean said, “Yeah, okay . . . if he’s there when we trap her, I won’t be able to talk him out of being a part of burying her.”

Beth slowly exhaled for a couple of seconds and said, “I could use a real tranq dart to knock him out while you’re trapping her if you want.”

Dean laughed and said, “What are you gonna do, tell him you were aiming for her, got the wrong ammo, and missed?”

Beth shrugged and said, “Something like that.” It was tempting, but . . . 

“I want him involved in taking her down. I think he has to be. We’ll just use the archangel to get her away from him tomorrow.” Beth nodded in agreement, and Dean turned her to head back downstairs before saying, “How do you know that Sam isn’t going to read that we're plotting about this and change things tomorrow?” 

Beth leaned back against him, so she could look up at his face and said, “Of course he knows we’re plotting. When was the last time you and I had to use someone’s bathroom together?” Dean laughed, and she added, “Sam would expect you to look for a way to get him out of this. Just do what you would do if you didn’t know about the archangel. Try to get out of town or try to get Sam to see sense or whatever your gut tells you to do in this situation . . . Chuck’s vision doesn’t have the specifics of this conversation unlike everything else he writes. It’s like Pamela said, the details about me and about the things I know are blocked from people with gifts like this. Chuck knows a bit more than she did, because he knows about the Rachel/Beth thing, but not what’s in my head or what I tell you is in my head.” Probably meant there were a lot of holes in Chuck’s next book. Good. Maybe there’d be so many, there wouldn’t be a next book. It was weird as hell to read about yourself and know other people out there were reading about you too. 

The day started with them trying to leave town. It’s what he’d do if he didn’t know about the archangel they were going to use to get out of this, and maybe he wanted to see if what Chuck had written could be changed, but they were blocked by detours every which way they went. It made him start to have doubts about their plan, which made it easier for him to do what he normally would if he were desperate to keep Sam away from Lilith. Next, he’d try to do the opposite of everything Chuck wrote.

Nothing he did worked. He couldn’t even change the lunch he was supposed to order, and it made his anxiety grow. If Chuck’s books couldn’t be changed, did that mean the show Beth watched couldn’t be changed either? Cas and Beth were always debating it, but Dean hadn’t really thought much about it until today. He’d just assumed that it wouldn’t be easy, but they would. He was sticking with that. It was better than thinking that he’d known how Lucifer was going to be released for a year and still wouldn’t be able to stop his brother from doing it.

Beth volunteered to stay with Sam at the motel after lunch to keep Dean from being the one to argue with Sam about it and to keep she and Dean from leaving Sam there alone while they had an argument outside the room. He took Sam’s laptop. Sam hadn’t liked that, but Dean didn’t think it could be classed as a real argument. He stayed on foot to counteract what Chuck wrote about him driving around town most of the afternoon, and saw Beth sitting on a park bench a couple hours later. She looked even better than she had last night even though her suit had been replaced with her black Mercury Rev t-shirt, a fitted flannel shirt, and jeans after she did laundry this morning. _I have to get this back under control . . .Was it ever under control? … Thought so . . . Yeah, well it’s not . . . What am I supposed to do? … Stop sleeping next to her . . . I’m not giving that up again . . .Then stop thinking about taking her -_

“You shouldn’t be here. What if we have a fight?” she said interrupting his thoughts. 

He realized he’d gravitated over to her, and he hadn’t planned on doing that. “Why does everything about me involve fighting today?” he asked with an awkward smile.

“I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with you being intense when you’re in protection mode.” _Yeah. Maybe. Don’t see how I’m going to fight with her though . . . Probably shouldn’t chance it._

“You gonna go back and stay with Sam?” he asked turning to walk away. “Not after I pissed him off by saying something negative about his precious Rachel.” He wondered what she said but decided not to ask, but then he thought maybe this was an opportunity to let her know Rachel wasn’t as bad as she thought.

“You know I think you’re being a little hard on her. The things she said back then weren’t wrong.” _Uh, what’d I do?_ She almost never gave him looks like that.

“Chuck’s prophecies?”

He nodded and said, “Uh, yeah . . . just wanted to . . . I know I should’ve asked you. I just . . . uh, I think I should go.”

He turned to walk away again, but stopped when she said, “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at her. I’m glad she got taken from me . . . Can’t imagine how bad of a person I must’ve been when I was born.” He turned back, and she was staring at her shoes while she added, “She was a vitriolic charmer who got away with saying and doing whatever she wanted. She was vile and selfish. She was a bad person, and I’m not a great person . . . I tend to be self-righteous and still have a temper . . . I can’t imagine how angry I would have been if I had her anger on top of mine. I’m a know-it-all. I cheat to win on just about everything. There’s a lot more wrong with me than that. I’m essentially a sociopath, and I’m the good half . . . I must’ve been born really bad . . . maybe they knew that, and that’s why they did what they did.”

He sat next to her, but she stopped him from saying anything about what she’d already said by adding, “I know what she did to you even if you don’t. She took what she knew about you and used it to attack you where your defenses are non-existent, and even if what she did was entirely subjective, I know that’s a much more powerful weapon than objectivity on something like self-worth. Facts are bland and cold. They lack the color and passion that opinions have. I can’t fight her kind of subjective words with my own either. I can’t just tell you that I think you’re important because of who you are, and when I say who you are, I don’t mean Dean Winchester, the hunter, I mean the real you. You’re not some weapon meant to fight the good fight even if you’re the best at what you do, because I think you’re worth more than that. And I can’t just tell you that I don’t care what mistakes you’ve made or will make, because when they happen, which isn’t as often as you think, they don’t change the way I see you. You’ll always be important to me. I can’t just tell you those things and fix what’s been done. You won’t believe me, because you’ve heard or been shown the opposite in one way or another almost your whole life, and she knew that and used it against you. I’m sorry that I didn’t find a way to get rid of her sooner even if you don’t think she said or did anything wrong, and I’m sorry for putting you on the spot just now.” Then she just got up and walked away. Was he supposed to say something? _What the fuck should I say? And now she’s gone. I’m not counting that as an argument._

He had to be near Chuck’s house, so he could get there, grab Chuck, and get back to the motel room before Lilith could kill his brother. What he really needed was to get his head in the game. He kept getting distracted by what Beth said to him back there. He should’ve talked to her sooner about what happened the other night. If he was being honest with himself, Rachel probably hadn’t been a very good person. He wouldn’t change having her in his life, because if he did, he wouldn’t have met Beth, but he hadn’t really liked Rachel most of the time, and he certainly hadn’t loved her . . . She’d been kind of like a drug, just as bad for him, and just as hard to quit. Now, he was starting to think that the reason he’d stayed with her wasn’t just for Sam, or for the odd good time, but because part of him had mistaken her for Beth, and that’s who he’d really wanted. He didn’t want Beth thinking that she deserved what happened to her just because she was born, but he didn’t know how to get her to change her mind on it now that she’d had time to make her mind up about it. 

Dean didn’t know what to do with what she’d said at the end either. She took him as he was without conditions. He didn’t know what it was that Beth saw in him to make her think he mattered the way she said he did, but she didn’t need him to understand it for her to think it. He found a part of him wanted that from her even though a larger part told him she’d figure it out some day like everybody else did. But what if she didn’t? What if nothing he did changed her mind about him?

He didn’t think he was trying to find her, but maybe he was somewhere in the back of his mind, because when he walked into the random bar he chose near Chuck’s house, Beth was already there, and he was expecting her to be. What he wasn’t expecting was to see some guy giving her a hard time on the far end of the bar. The guy kept blocking her path to the door, and now instead of just being a douche about it and getting in her way, he thought it’d be funny to herd her back with his arms stretched out like she was a farm animal. 

**She didn’t** want to hurt the guy so upsetting his balance and shoving him into the bar was a warning. Then she told the guy to fuck off. She didn’t get far before the guy grabbed her and forcibly shoved his tongue down her throat, while groping her in an obviously unwanted way. A couple of the guy’s friends cheered in the background. _What the fuck is wrong with people, and why does this keep happening?_ Dean got to Beth, shoved the guy off of her, and pulled her behind him, so he could act as a barrier between the two. It felt like she’d been cursed. In fact, he was sure she had been at some point, because this kind of thing happened to her all the time . . . usually he stepped in before it got to this point, but that didn’t mean the odd asshole didn’t slip through when he wasn’t looking. When she tugged on his arm to tell him to go get Chuck, the guy took a swing that Dean dodged, but it was close enough that Dean’s focus stayed on the guy. 

Beth moved quickly around to face Dean and told him to go while she gave him a small shove to get his attention. When the guy came up and put his arm around her possessively, Dean’s fists clenched, but Beth quickly said, “Go help Sam. You haven’t got much time.” He wasn’t leaving without her. “You don’t have time to waste on this . . . She’s with Sam right now if this is the bar fight that’s happening when he opens the door to her . . . Go. I’ll get myself out of here and catch up.” He didn't have time to kick this guy's ass, and that's what it was going to take to get the guy to leave her alone. Plus, there were all the guy's friends too.

"I'm not leaving until you promise me -"

Beth jabbed her elbow into the guy's stomach, gave him a hard right across the nose, and then kneed him in the crotch, before she looked at Dean over her shoulder and said, "This is what you wanted, right? Now go." That's exactly what he'd wanted her to promise him she'd do, but now he could just take her with him if all the guy's friends were just going to stand there and laugh at the guy for getting beaten up by a chick . . . well, all of them but one, a wiry little guy who wasn't much bigger than Beth. He looked like he'd been in more than one bar fight in his life, and - "Dean . . . what are you doing? I said I have this. I'll be 2 minutes, but they're not 2 minutes you have, and you've already wasted one. Go save your brother." She was right. Dean turned to leave before glancing back to make sure she’d be all right. It looked like she was going to try and talk the other guy down, but she was in a defensive position just in case that didn't work. She'd be okay, so he kept going. He’d swing by later to see if the guy who'd assaulted her was still around . . . it’s what he did with dickheads like that . . . Course she didn’t know that, and she didn’t need to know. When things like this happened, they made her feel shit enough as it was, and he didn’t want her blaming herself for it afterwards, because none of it was her fault. Not what the guys did to her, and not what he did to the guys after he took her home and snuck back out to remind them that no means no. 

He and Chuck got to Sam just in time. The archangel didn’t even have to make an appearance, but its impending arrival was enough to make Lilith run, just like Beth said she would. Dean was already motivated to keep Lucifer from being sprung from his cage, but maybe now he had a better idea of what they were up against if Lucifer got out. Beth had said Lucifer was the second most powerful archangel next to Michael. He didn’t think that Michael, the leader of all the angels, would come down to help out the prophet when he was busy with running Heaven, which meant Lucifer was stronger than the archangel that had just been on its way into that room. It motivated Dean to do whatever he had to do to keep Lucifer locked up and made him wish he’d taken Beth up on her offer to tranq Sam, so he could’ve trapped Lilith then and there.

5 minutes later, Beth came barreling through the door just as he was getting ready to take Chuck back home. She must not have spent too much time at the bar after he’d left, because she’d had a pretty long run ahead of her. She asked if it was over, and Dean barely said, “Yeah,” when she ran straight over to Chuck and said thank you before giving him a big hug. _Again with the hugging?_ He never got the sort of reaction in the beginning that Cas or apparently Chuck got. He didn’t get that kind of reaction now. Chuck appreciated it and said Dean wouldn’t have had to strong-arm him into coming along if he’d told him Beth would be there.

Looked like the prophet was developing a little crush, but she didn’t notice as she stood back to catch her breath and said to Dean with a laugh, “I think we can add a few more things to our Picking up Chicks 101 list.”


	33. The Cracks In the Repairs Begin To Show

“Thanks, but no thanks, Sam . . . It’s impractical. I’ll take it back when you two leave and just stay and do research in the room the rest of the night,” Elsbeth said before she turned and walked back towards their motel room. Sam had found them another case. He didn’t know what she and Dean were planning, but they were up to something. If he had to guess, he’d say it was a way to take down Lilith without killing her. Why they didn’t say anything to him about it is probably the same reason they’d all been able to get along together recently. They all knew what the others thought about Lilith, and none of them were going to change their minds, so to keep the peace, they didn’t talk about Lilith at all anymore, but that didn’t mean that Lilith wasn’t still like an invisible fourth passenger everyone knew was there . . . that’s why Sam thought it was best if they just had a nice easy hunt after the last case threatened to rock the boat. 

It would have been fine if the hunt had actually been a poltergeist, but instead he ended up finally getting a chance to kill Lilith, and he hadn’t been able to get the job done. Maybe he wasn’t all that close to being able to do it even though he’d thought he would be after killing Alistair. He needed to get stronger, and he thought Elsbeth and Dean needed to clear their heads. They hadn’t been quite the same since Alistair. They were closer now, if that was possible, and sleeping in the same bed again every night. Sam had to admit that when Elsbeth and Dean shared a bed, Dean didn’t have nearly as many nightmares as he did on a good night when she was sleeping on the couch. When she’d been taken, Dean hadn’t been able to sleep more than an hour or so a night. 

One demon he could definitely rule-out as one that Elsbeth was working for was Alistair. She almost didn’t make it, and if he’d been any later, she wouldn’t have. Dean was just lucky there was a working pay phone not far from the house where they’d been staying, or he would’ve lost her. There was still something off about her, and there was still a chance she was unknowingly working for Lilith after having been brainwashed, but after finding out the similarities between the show she’d watched and Chuck’s books, he was starting to think that maybe she was a prophet like Chuck. Sam didn’t know where her archangel had been when Alistair almost killed her, but then he remembered they all had that angel warding on their ribs, so maybe her archangel couldn’t find her.

She might be a prophet, but that didn’t mean she was right about Lilith being the last seal. Prophets get their information fed to them from somewhere, and Sam thought maybe she was getting it from something that was trying to mislead them, but she didn’t know that . . . he didn’t think she was intentionally doing anything wrong herself . . . just whoever or whatever was feeding her the intel was. Probably some angel . . . Sam felt hugly disappointed by angels. After years of believing in them and thinking they were good, now he thought they were all dicks. 

Dean seemed to like Castiel, but Sam wasn’t a fan of him either. Cas had led Dean to where Sam was training with Ruby, and Cas had wanted to destroy that town with the witches trying to release Samhain. Cas had also been there when Alistair almost killed Dean, and what good was an angel if they couldn’t even fight off a demon . . . Uriel had been an even bigger douche. So, angels were Sam’s working theory on where Elsbeth was getting her disinformation. Why the angels would want to keep him from killing Lilith, he didn’t know. He needed to look into it and do some more research, but not right now.

Right now what they needed was to work a case where they could all get along as a team on a case that had nothing to do with Lilith or the seals . . . just a good, old-fashioned, cursed object in an old-money mansion in Georgia kind of case. It was supposed to be easy, but it looked like Elsbeth was going to make this case difficult too. Or maybe Dean was the one who was going to make it difficult. Sam felt like his brother had set him up on this dress shopping business. She’d come out looking so excited until she saw the dress and took off back into the room. He hadn’t even shown her the shoes yet. She looked like she was about the same size as Rachel, so he thought everything would fit. He didn’t get what the problem was. 

When he got in the motel room, Dean was sitting at the table trying not to laugh. “She locked herself in the bathroom . . . I’m expecting her to make a break for it.”

Sam shrugged and said, “It’s just a dress . . . What’d she think she was gonna wear?”

Dean grinned when Elsbeth shouted through the door, “I was thinking more Cat Woman going through the vents, than Selena Kyle going to a damn ball.” 

Sam looked at Dean and finally got it. Dean must’ve been leading her to believe that they were going in through the backdoor and using the party as a distraction to grab the cursed object instead of walking in through the front door during the party. “What’d you tell her I was going to get?”

“Tools of the trade."

Elsbeth grumbled, “You’re a tool of the trade . . . You let me think he was going to get gear, so we could rob the place, not that he was going to get that monstrosity.” 

_Monstrosity?_ Sam looked at the dress on the hanger in his hand again and thought it looked all right. He’d gone for the opposite of what Rachel would’ve worn, because Elsbeth was pretty much the opposite of Rachel . . . It actually looked more like something Jess would’ve worn. It was navy blue and had one shoulder, so it wasn’t strapless, and it was an a-line cut, so if she had to run, it wouldn’t trip her up . . . he’d never in a million years tell Dean he knew what an a-line cut for a dress was, but he did . . . because of Jess. 

Dean checked his watch and said, “Come on, Beth . . . times a waistin’.”

She sounded like she was leaning up against the door when she said, “Can I wear my boots?”

Dean looked at Sam for the answer to that one, so Sam grinned and shook his head. “Sam says no.”

She quickly tried, “I can’t stay here?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “No, me and Sam can’t get near that thing. You’re the one that’s gonna have to grab it.”

Sam gave Dean a disapproving look, because that was an out and out lie. They couldn’t touch it with their bare hands, but they could get it if they were wearing gloves. Sam would actually rather do this case with just Dean, but Dean didn’t want to be the only one who went to this thing feeling uncomfortable and bored. He’d finally found someone that would hate going to things like this almost as much as he did, and being able to mess with Elsbeth would almost make this bearable for Dean. 

“Can I still do all the cool things?” Elsbeth asked quietly through the door. _What cool things?_

“Yeah, Sam’s gonna keep watch, you and me are gonna get past the security system, and you can crack the safe . . . just like we planned,” Dean answered back.

“All right . . . fine, but you owe me . . . and don’t think I don’t know you could get it if you wanted to get it wearing gloves, Dean Winchester,” Elsbeth said before opening the door and snatching the bags from Sam.

“Dean . . . she hasn’t gone out the window. It’s only been 15 minutes . . . leave her alone. You’re not even done getting dressed yet,” an exasperated Sam said when Dean went to annoy Elsbeth again. Between Elsbeth and Dean, Sam felt like the oldest one out of the three of them. 10 minutes later, he and Dean were both ready to go, and Dean said he was going out to the car to wait. Sam suspected that Dean had said that as a cover for really going to stand guard at the bathroom window. He had no idea what the two of them had said to each other between the time he got out of the car and got into the room, but whatever it was had led to her being in the bathroom, and Dean thinking she had run off. It didn’t help that she kept refusing to answer Dean when he said something to her so Dean would think the silence meant she’d fled. 

5 minutes later, Sam knocked on the bathroom door. 30 minutes wasn’t that long for most women, but he hadn’t thought Elsbeth would take very long. It’s not like she ever cared how she looked. “Uh, yeah . . . just wanted to make sure you were all right in there.”

A couple seconds later, Elsbeth said, “I’m practicing.” Dean said she could do this.

“Practicing what? You know how to crack a safe . . . or Dean said you did,” Sam answered.

“Uhh . . . walking. I think I’ve nearly got it. I want to look legit,” Elsbeth replied.

“Practice walking to the car. We should get going. It’s almost 9.” Practice walking? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard.

She opened the door and he must not have hidden what he was thinking very well, because she said, “Have you ever tried walking in heels? I don’t want to look stupid, and if we have to run, I’m taking the shoes off.” She looked nice. She was fidgeting, but she looked the part. He tried to hide his grin when she stumbled and nearly fell as they got to the motel room door . . . Seeing her struggle with the shoes might almost make up for the fact that she was going. 

He couldn’t help laughing when they were nearly to the car, because she was next to him one second and the next she was toppling over. “You laugh now, but you won’t laugh when I steal all your shoes and only leave a pair of transvestite’s stilettos for you to wear.” She looked up at Dean, who’d gotten out of the car to help her up and said, “Can I take the shoes off now?” 

She couldn’t go to a formal event with no shoes on. Dean looked at her dress to see if it would hide that she wasn’t wearing shoes and said, “Take ‘em off for now, and I’ll help you when we get there. Take ‘em off again when we’re cracking the safe, and you can leave ‘em off after that. We just need to get in the front door.” She didn’t waste and time kicking the shoes off and picking them up on her way to the back seat while Sam made his way around to the passenger side. 

Before she hopped in the back, Dean stopped her and leaned across the opened door between them, so he could whisper something to her that Sam couldn’t hear, and that made her smile. Sam had no idea how to read her, but he thought her smiling like that meant she’d pulled off some kind of a con Dean had called her on . . . Whatever it was, Sam wasn’t allowed to know. Maybe she’d faked falling in the shoes? No, that seemed genuine. She was a good liar though . . . or maybe it was some joke they had between the two of them that he wasn’t in on, because they had a lot of those. 

“Okay . . . you two know what we’re getting, right?” Sam asked after they left. They should. They’d been researching the case and doing interviews all week, but neither one of them seemed to be paying attention tonight.

Dean and Beth shared a look in the rearview mirror, and Elsbeth said, “Yeah, the husband’s new lady killer ring.” 10 women and 1 man over the last 75 years . . . most recently, a murder-suicide. The ring responsible had been sold a week ago in an estate auction to the woman that lived in the mansion they were going to now. The husband had been overseas for work and was just getting back tonight. It was the reason for the welcome home/birthday formal party they were about to crash. They had to get the ring before the wife gave it to the husband as a gift. They knew it was going to the husband, because the wife’d had it insured in her husband’s name, and while Sam had found that, Dean and Elsbeth had interviewed the wife’s friends for a fake magazine article about the party and got the details of where the ring was being kept until the big reveal. 

When they pulled up to the mansion, Dean helped Elsbeth get to the front door. To Sam’s great disappoint, Elsbeth only stumbled once or twice, but it wasn’t very noticeable, because she mostly had the walk down, and Dean held onto her. Sam thought maybe she had conned his brother into saying she didn’t have to wear the shoes all night. 

They were separating when they went in . . . well they were supposed to separate, but it looked like Dean and Elsbeth were going to stick together . . . figures they’d head to the bar. Sam was left to mingle with the other guests in the other room. 

_Why are older women always so handsy?_ That was the 4th one that had grabbed his arm or touched his chest suggestively and one of them grabbed his butt. He looked at his watch. Should be about time. He glanced towards the bar to look for his brother. Dean looked like he was having a good time. At least one of them was. 

Finally, he got Dean’s attention, and Dean nodded and said something to Elsbeth, and she hopped off the bar stool before Dean guided her through the crowd towards the hall at the back as Sam headed in the same direction. He just needed to head off anyone that might go towards the study, so Dean and Elsbeth had time to do what they needed to do. 

After they went into the room, Sam kept a close eye on the time. 5 minutes . . . 7 minutes . . . 10 minutes . . . what was taking so long? Sam saw them come out a minute later. Elsbeth’s hair was messed up . . . _were they fooling around in there?_ His brother was usually more professional than that. Dean signaled that Sam should go out the entrance he was standing near while Dean and Elsbeth headed down the other side of the hall and back into the main party. When they met back up at the car, Sam handed Elsbeth the curse box to put the ring into and asked, “What took you so long?” 

Elsbeth smiled, and she and his brother shared a look before Dean said, “Turns out the security system wasn’t so much a system as it was a couple of Dobermans . . . took Beth awhile to charm ‘em.” _Yeah, likely story._

“Nah, that was all Dean . . . I just let them chase me for awhile to keep them away from him until he came up with a better distraction . . . Aside from that, I think this was one of the easiest cases I’ve been on with you two.” _Would’ve been easier with just Dean and I . . . This was supposed to be a team effort, and you hijacked it. I’m getting tired of always feeling like the third wheel . . . I guess at least I have Ruby, but it’s not like she’s allowed to ride along in the backseat like you._


	34. One Betrayal After Another

Those dogs had been unexpected. I tried to keep their attention on me, so Dean wouldn’t have to deal with them . . . because Hellhounds . . . but me trying to sweet talk them didn’t work. In fact it seemed to piss them off, so I was still able to keep their attention on me, but not the kind of attention I wanted. It was mostly the kind of attention that required me to keep them away using a chair until Dean told me to toss him my stupid shoes. He put some cocktail sausages he’d pocketed at the bar into them and threw them to the dogs saying something about dogs liking to chew on shoes and the sausages were an added insentive for them to leave us alone while we hit the safe. 

After that, they turned into pretty sweet dogs, but then I didn’t ask for the shoes back. All in all, it was a great night . . . well, it was after Dean saw how much trouble I was having walking out to the car and said he’d take me out later to make up for me having to wear the shoes. He said we could just pretend it was one of our nights out in stupid clothes until we could turn it into one of our actual nights out. After we got back and changed into normal clothes, we played poker in the back room of the bar we went to on the other side of town. We won big and met some interesting people . . . It was a fun case and a great way to close it out. We invited Sam to come out with us, since he found the case, and we were all getting along okay, but he wasn’t up for it. 

Cas called when we were almost in South Dakota. He said there were only about 12 seals left, and I had a feeling that they would start going faster after Sam rejected Lilith’s offer. If we stayed at Bobby’s long enough that the next 11 seals broke and nothing happened with the 12th, maybe Sam would finally see the truth about Lilith being the final seal. Cas and Anna were still trying to stop the seals, or at least save as many innocent bystanders that might get caught up in the seals breaking as they could. At this point that’s all they could do. 

We walked into Bobby’s, like it was a normal visit, until Bobby asked Sam to get something for him from the panic room, and Dean locked Sam inside. Not much happened the first day. Sam just yelled for us to let him out. He kept saying we didn’t understand, and he was the only one who could stop her. It’s true that he was the only one who could safely stop her, but not by doing what he was doing. I didn’t go down to see him at all. He needed his family around him, not someone he’d only just started to be kind of okay with having around. 

By the second day, it began to sink in for Dean and Bobby that this wouldn’t be an easy ride. Sam started getting the sweats and shakes that day. Dean had to guard the door every time Bobby went down to give him food and to bring him dry clothes and sheets when the old ones soaked through with sweat. Sam didn’t want to see Dean unless he was there to let him out. 

The third day was when the screaming started. Dean kept asking me what I remembered about when Sam went through detox, and I told him the worst was when Sam had to be tied down to keep from hurting himself with seizures and being flung by invisible forces from one side of the room to the other. I didn’t know how long it would take before that happened. 

As the screaming progressed, Dean’s distress grew. He felt every one of those screams like a razor blade to the chest and was kicking himself for not having gotten Sam here sooner. Bobby’s resolve wobbled, and he voiced his opinion that maybe this wasn’t the right way to go more than once before he took to working outside in the yard. 

The screaming stopped on the 4th day, and that’s when they had to tie Sam down. Late on the 5th night, I saw Dean sitting at the bottom of the stairs with his head in his hands. Sam was sleeping for the moment. I decided to sit next to Dean and stayed until Sam woke up and started talking to people that weren’t there again. _Some of that sounds pretty private. I should go._ I stood to leave, so I could give them space and felt Dean’s hand grab mine before I had a chance to turn around. _Okay, I'll stay if that’s what he wants._ I sat back down on the step behind him with my legs on either side of his body, wrapped my arms around him in a hug, and laid my head on his back. We didn’t say anything. I was just there to give him the support he could accept in that moment. 

A couple days later, the hallucinations stopped. Detox was over. That’s when Dean finally went in there. He only left to bring Sam down food and water, and then he maintained his vigil, so he could be there every time Sam woke up . . . there was no pressure on Sam to talk, but if he had things to say, Dean was there. Sam opted not to talk, so after a while, Dean did the talking and kept it to things they did when they were growing up in case that’s what Sam needed to hear. When Sam was strong enough to get out of the bed and on his feet with Dean’s help, Dean thought he was strong enough to come back upstairs. He didn’t want to keep Sam locked up for longer than it took to get him detoxed. That’s when I got my first real look at Sam. He was disheveled and had hollow-eyes. He didn’t look at me, and I didn’t think he needed to look at me, so I headed upstairs to my room. 

Over the next few days, I stayed outside and trained or stayed in my room reading, but the odd time that I saw Sam in passing, I noticed that he seemed to stare off into space when Dean said anything to him, but the hollow-eyes had disappeared. Now he was being stubborn and refusing to talk to punish Dean, and Dean knew that. He was prepared to take whatever Sam dished out if that’s what Sam needed. Eventually, Dean thought Sam needed a goal to motivate him, so he filled Sam in on the plan for Lilith, and what Sam’s part in that would be. It got a flicker of a glance from Sam, but it didn’t get Sam talking either. 

Four days after he came up from the panic room, Sam snuck out and didn’t come back. I think it may have had something to do with a phone call from Cas the night before. He’d called to tell Dean that there were only about 4 seals left. Sam must’ve heard and decided that Dean’s plan wasn’t the way to go, so he took off. It took Dean a week to find him, and by that time there was pretty much just the one seal left. There hadn’t been much talking between any of us in the last few weeks with Sam going through detox and then disappearing. It was a shitty situation and was probably about to get a whole lot worse. 

I secretly called Cas while Dean was packing. Dean was leaving me there, but that didn’t mean I had to stay. My target was Ruby, and as soon as she was gone, I was going to hunt on my own for a while . . . I just needed to figure out where Lilith was going to be for the final seal . . . I was pretty sure the answer was somewhere in my head, and Cas could help me figure it out. Dean would be busy with detoxing Sam again, so that left Cas and Anna to trap Lilith, and me to help discard her body parts, or that’s what I was thinking. Lilith wouldn’t be expecting an angel to fly in and shoot her.

Cas didn’t answer his phone, so I left a message. “Cas, Dean’s going to go try and bring Sam back. I’m going after Ruby, and I have the perfect window for when I can do it, but I need something that can kill her if you have any ideas.” 

I didn’t expect Cas to pop up behind me about 10 seconds later, but when he did I smiled, and my grin grew when he handed me an angel blade. “Cas, where did you get this?” _It looks amazing, almost custom made. It's just the right size._

“It’s yours.” _Really?_

“Will anybody come looking for it?” _It’s beautiful._

“Nobody knows that it exists,” he finally answered after choosing his words carefully.

I continued to appraise my new weapon, and said, “I don’t know how to pay you back, but thanks.” It was different than his. It looked a little like Sting from the Hobbit movies. I loved it, and it was mine all mine. 

“If you want to pay me back, train on it with me once you return.”

I smiled and said, “A beautiful new weapon, and an expert willing to train me on it? This is one of the best days of my life.”

He gave me an infinitesimal smile and said, “Be careful. Ruby will be at her most dangerous now that she is so close to her goal.”

I looked at my blade again and said, “She won’t see me until it’s too late,” before I told him to be careful too, and then he was gone. He was going to keep an eye on Heaven. The other angels had found out in the last couple of days what he was up to and had started the process of cutting him off, but at least he had Anna to watch his back. 

Dean came up behind me not long after Cas left and said, “I don’t know what you’re planning, but I need you to stay here.” _That’s not happening._

“I won’t be here when you get back. I need to hunt on my own for a while.” _Don’t ask why._

“Thought you were gonna stay as long as I want. What was all that stuff about your word being your bond if you’re just gonna bail on me?” _Who said anything about bailing on you?_

“You’ll get Sam on the same page as you, but not with me here. You don’t need me. I’m not important. He is. And I’m not bailing on you. I’ll call and check in the way we used to before I went on the road with you.”

He looked like he was holding his breath for a couple of seconds before he said, “If you go, don’t bother calling,” before he turned and headed for his car. I deserved that. 

After Dean left, I told Bobby what I was going to do, and well . . . he was a lot more supportive of it than I’d thought he’d be. He thought I was probably right about giving Sam and Dean space, and he was all for me getting rid of Ruby, so Dean wouldn’t get the blame for it from Sam. He let me know my home was still there, so I told him I would come back after Sam and Dean were gone and that maybe I would start helping fill in on hunts when hunters called needing a partner. He was happy enough with that, because he didn’t want me hunting on my own. Of course I planned on hunting solo too, but we’d have time to argue about that later. 

Bobby let me use one of his old trucks and told me where Dean was heading in case I wasn’t sure. I think he was starting to rethink sending me on my own, but he got a phone call and had to take it just as I was about to leave, so I used that as my opportunity to leave, gave him a wave, and headed out the door. I didn’t have much time to waste. I’d been over this scenario about 100 times with Dean over the last week, so I knew I had a short window when it came to arrival times. I had to get there after Dean did, so he didn’t try to stop me, and before Sam and Ruby came back to the room. 

I drove non-stop, because I knew that’s what Dean was going to do, and when I pulled up at the hotel, the Impala was already parked outside. I went in the quietest side entrance to avoid witnesses and didn’t see anyone along the way. I knew Sam was booked into the honeymoon suite, which was just . . . yuck. There was something so wrong with that when you took dead meat suit issues into consideration. That should be a sign of how messed up Sam was.

I assumed they were still out, because I didn’t hear any kind of commotion coming from their room. While Dean waited for them there, I waited for them in a janitor’s closet down the hall. _Oh, look. Aren't they the happy couple?_ Once they went by, I snuck out and waited outside the door to their suite. I was hoping that Ruby’s natural reaction would be to focus on Sam and Dean instead of where she was going if they were arguing. Dean didn’t know I was there. That meant she wouldn’t know I was there either if she couldn’t read his mind. 

Not long after I got into position, the door flew open, because Dean had just tried to kill Ruby with the demon blade again, and Sam was letting her go. Sam was about 4 feet away. His back was to the door, so he didn’t see me. His focus was on keeping Dean from following her. They were about to fight over it, and that drew all of Ruby’s attention onto them until she bumped into me. 

When she turned to look at what she’d run into, her eyes widened and then narrowed into a glare. She didn’t get to do much more than that, because it was a brief encounter. It only lasted a second or two. That’s all the time it took for me to drop the angel blade from my sleeve and jam it up into her heart. I didn’t have time to think about how I’d just killed my nemesis. I had to get out of there. I didn’t even wait until she’d stopped flickering or for her body to hit the ground before I glanced at Dean to say goodbye and turned to book it out of there. Sam was all his again. 

Two steps down the hall, a huge arm wrapped around my waist and picked me up. Shit. He sure is fast. Not fast enough to stop me from killing Ruby, but fast enough that he could pick me up, slam my head against the door frame, and throw me on the ground, before Dean had a chance to move more than a few feet away from where I'd last seen him. Dean helped me get to my feet, and then put me behind him and backed me away from Sam. 

The next time I saw around Dean, the door was shut, and Sam was staring at Ruby’s body on the floor. Dean got my attention and made me look at him. I think he thought I had a concussion and was checking. That or he was wiping off the blood off my forehead . . . or both? _Why does he look sad?_ He glanced at Sam and stood in front of me again before nudging me towards the windows at the back of the room. _I can do that . . . don’t need a clear head to slip out a window._

I inched my way back as slowly as I could while Sam’s focus was on the dead demon at his feet. When I got to the window, I kept it to my back and kept my eyes on Sam. I didn’t want him to see me make any sudden movements, and I didn’t want to turn my back on him. _Stupid, fucking window_ . . . it only opened a couple of inches for safety reasons, but that was enough to grab Sam’s attention. Dean put his hand up and cautiously said, “Sam . . .” and that’s all he got out before Sam came charging at me, like a fucking train. 

Dean pushed me out of the way and took the hit, and I found myself trapped in the corner away from any windows. I dropped my angel blade to the floor and kicked it under the bed across the room. I didn’t want to use it on Sam or have Sam use it on me. 

The ensuing fight between Sam and Dean was brutal, and I had a feeling it was far far worse than it should’ve been . . . probably because in the version of this fight I had seen, Ruby hadn’t died, and I wasn’t there for Dean to try and protect. They threw each other into walls and tables and beds. They used all the training in hand-to-hand combat that they’d grown up learning, except Dean was primarily on the defensive, because he was trying not to seriously hurt Sam. He was doing all right considering Sam wasn’t holding back on him, had super human strength from the demon blood, and adrenaline from his rage. 

Then Sam smashed Dean in the head a couple of times with something . . . a chair leg, I think . . . once to drop him, and once to make him a lot slower about getting back up. I took a few steps forward, so I could go to Dean, but Dean groggily put his hand up to stop me . . . and then he cried out in pain as Sam did something horrendous to make him stay down . . . _Forget hunting. Dean is going to have trouble walking again._ It all happened, so fast. I was in shock at what I’d just seen, because I never thought Sam’s hatred of me would outweigh his love of Dean. 

I looked at Sam while he advanced on me and said, “He didn’t know, Sam. I didn’t tell him. You have to let him go. He’s –“ before he power punched me in the face to lay me out and slammed my head into . . . I didn’t know . . . a bedpost? He didn’t knock me out, but I was even fuzzier in my thinking than I had been before that. I tried to get to my hands and knees, which just wasn’t happening this time. I mostly felt like throwing up and wished the ringing in my ears and the spots in front of my eyes would go away. Sam moved to his bag to grab a few things and came back over to me, so he could roll me over onto my back and go through my pockets before he picked me up by the collar and dragged me until we got close enough to Dean that he could do the same to him. It did not end well from there.


	35. The Moment Everything Changed

Dean was out of it, but he knew that Beth was beside him, and they were being drug somewhere together . . . by what? He didn’t know what it was . . . shifter maybe? Whatever it was, it had raged out like the Incredible Hulk. It kicked the shit out of him and left him with a partially functioning brain and a fucked up knee, but it wasn’t done yet . . . He had to get Beth out of this. Why hadn’t he fought harder? He didn’t know. Maybe . . . maybe it was Sam . . . and he’d never try to kill him . . . never . . . _So this is Sam, not a monster_ . . . He’d just had it knocked out of his head. _It’s Sam, not a monster._ Dean used that simple phrase as a mantra to try and focus so he could get past the fogginess and ringing in his ears . . . He had to find a way to get through to Sam before Sam took this further and couldn’t come back from it. He watched Beth grab ahold of the doorframe to stop them from being drug into the bathroom. She wouldn’t budge even when Sam started stomping on her hands, so Sam kicked her in the head to knock her out. 

Dean hazily went to push himself up to get Sam to back away from her but stopped when Sam put a gun to her head and tossed some handcuffs towards him. _Cuff myself around the toilet? Why?_ “Come on, Sam. I’m not –“ Sam, told him to do it, or he’d just kill her now. He knew Sam could pull the trigger faster than he could stop him, so he did what his brother said even though it went against everything his instincts told him to do.

“Dean, you should’ve stayed out of my way.” Sam crouched down to tighten the cuffs so that Dean couldn’t get out of them before he went back over to Beth and added, “But you always think you know best. You just had to have Elsbeth kill the one person who could help me find Lilith. Well, not the one person, right?” before he bent down to pick Beth up and then unceremoniously threw her into the tub. _Why the hell did he do that? She wasn’t goin’ anywhere._

If it were anyone or anything else he’d think it was meant for easy clean up . . . He didn’t know Sam well enough anymore to be able to rule that out as a possibility. Dean regretted his decision to give in to Sam so easily and needed to rectify it, so he put his feet against the wall behind the toilet and tried to work past the pain in his mangled knee to fix that mistake. “This is a good hotel, Dean. Not like the shit holes you usually make us stay in. It’ll take you awhile to get out of that.” _Yeah, well, we’ll see about that._

“So, it occurs to me that Elsbeth has all the answers. I bet if I ask her, she’ll be able to tell me where Lilith is going to be for the final seal.” Sam turned the shower on to wake her up. Dean heard her gasp before she propped herself up on her elbows to try and keep the cold water out of her face and shake off some of her dizziness. When Sam turned the water off, she looked over and saw Dean.

She looked confused, like she didn’t know why he was there, and then she looked up at Sam and said, “I told you he . . . it was all me, Sam. He didn’t know what I was doing.” _Focus on me, Sam._

“Yeah, well I wanted that bitch gone. Best present I ever got . . . just wish I’d been the one to do it.”

Sam glanced at him over his shoulder and said, “Yeah? I’ll remember you said that.” _Why? What are you gonna do?_

She hadn’t heard what Sam said a few minutes ago, so Sam leaned closer to her and said, “Where’s Lilith going to be for the final seal?”

She looked confused again for a couple of seconds, and mumbled, “Lilith? What?” That was an act. Now she was using her brain damage as an excuse to play dumb, and it was convincing. She also used Lilith as the first word out of her mouth after Sam’s question. Sam still thought her saying the subject of the question first is what made her have to answer. It didn’t. It’d taken them a while to figure it out, but it was her intent to answer that forced her to say anything. 

Sam put his hands on either side of her face and made her look at him while he slowly said, “Where is Lilith going to be for the last seal?”

Beth watched Sam and dozily answered, “Why did you hurt Dean?” _That’s good . . . remind Sam he’s teetering on the edge._

“If you help me find Lilith, I’ll let Dean go.” _But not her?_

“So, you can do what, Sam?” Dean didn’t like the calculated look his brother gave him after that.

Sam looked down at Beth again and said, “You want me to find Lilith, so I can help Dean trap her, right?” Sam nodded to convince her to nod along with him, and when she complied with the nod, Sam let go of her head and sat on the edge of the tub to study her. “I’m gonna need your help, then . . . Elsbeth, where’s your tattoo?” Beth’s act through all of this was so good that for all Sam knew she had the mental age of a 6 year old right now, and it pissed Dean off that Sam would do whatever the hell he was planning on doing to someone that was in that kind of a state even if she really wasn’t.

“Sam, look at her. You’re better than this.”

Sam looked over at him and said, “You’d say anything to get her off the hook.” _Off the hook for what?_

“Elsbeth, tell me where your tattoo is, or I’ll find it myself.” _This had better not be going where I think it is, Sam._ Dean went back to trying to push off the wall but stopped when his brother reached down towards Beth. _You’ve gotta give the act up now._ Beth disappeared inside the tub and her foot came up and kicked Sam square in the face . . . hard. _Keep fighting. He’s not gonna let this go. I’ll find a way to get you out of here._

She kicked Sam in the stomach when he came at her again, but Sam didn’t step back as long this time before he moved closer to her head. She sat up and punched Sam in the nose with a decent left hook even if it was her weak hand and managed to block Sam’s retaliation, but she didn’t have much room to work in, and Sam didn’t stop trying despite Dean’s attempts to get his attention, so eventually Sam was able to grab one of her wrists and flip her over onto her stomach. Sam held her down, and Dean couldn’t see what he was doing, but it looked like he’d pulled the back of her jacket over her head, so she couldn’t see or use her arms. “Hey! Get your hands off of her, Sam! . . . Sam! You’ve gotta let her go!” Sam ignored him, and a few seconds later, he flipped Beth over onto her back. Her tat must not be on her back. Sam grabbed his knife, and Dean pulled against the cuffs and shouted, “You don’t have to do this, Sam! Sam . . . Sammy . . . Let her go. Let’s work this out . . . you and me.” 

Beth must’ve gotten out of the jacket restraints, because Dean saw her arms reach up and try to stop Sam as he brought his knife down, but she wasn’t strong enough, and Dean knew she’d been stabbed, because there was about an inch of blood on the blade after Sam brought it back up. “Sam, what are you doin’? This isn’t you,” Dean grunted as he pushed harder against the wall and felt the bowl finally move this time. If Sam could exorcise and kill demons, then he had to be able to make them go where he wanted, and there was no way in hell Dean was going to let Sam use his powers to put a demon in Beth. Why the fuck did he cuff himself here . . . he needed to stop being a bitch about his knee and get his fucking head right, so he could stop this.

“I’m just a freak to you, right, Dean? And Ruby . . . she was just a demon? What about Elsbeth? You’ve been helping her use her gift all year . . . you never thought that what she can do makes her something you’d hunt if you didn’t know her. You never thought you could be wrong about her once,” Sam said looking down at Dean. Maybe he should’ve explained this before now if that’s what Sam was hung up on, but he thought he had . . . did he? It seemed like he had . . . God, his head was a mess.

“Sam . . . I shouldn’t have said that to you, and what she can do. It’s not the same. They’re memories –“

“It doesn’t matter if she was shown these things in a TV show. There’s still something unnatural about it . . . nothing that showed her those things was human, and it doesn’t change that you should’ve listened to me . . . about her . . . about Ruby . . . about my gift . . . about Lilith . . . about anything I’ve been saying to you all year. I’m your brother!” Dean saw Beth trying to get out of the bathtub behind Sam and decided to do whatever he could to keep Sam’s attention on him.

“Sam, you believe what she says. You wouldn’t want her to answer your questions on where to find Lilith if you didn’t.” 

Beth was nearly out the door and made a fast break for it before Sam turned around, saw she was gone, and went flying after her . . . whatever happened in the other room was a big enough fight, but didn’t last long enough for Dean to get out of his restraints. When Sam came back, he was carrying a battered Beth and threw her back in the bathtub. Sam kept his focus on her this time and said, “Tell me. With as much as you know . . . did you know there’s a demon down the street pretending to be homeless? There’s another one pretending to be a maid two floors below us. Think I’ll use that one.” _And that doesn’t seem suspicious to you?_

“Sam, if there are demons that close, then they’re here for a reason. Bet you told Ruby what I said about being able to find you again before you got to Lilith if you left, 'cause Beth saw me track you down . . . but what I didn't tell you is that you'd still leave with Ruby . . . she called in back up, Sam . . . or she told Lilith, and Lilith did, so -” Black smoke came circling in through the vent. Dean kept trying to get Sam to rethink this, but Sam was done listening to him and crammed the demon into Beth anyway. She sat up for a moment with black eyes before cowering at the sight of Sam. 

Sam asked the demon if it knew who he was, and Dean saw it nod its head before Sam said, “Good. Can you see where Lilith is going to be?” When the demon shook its head no and said Beth had a lot of things locked away that it couldn’t access, Sam looked at Dean to see his reaction to what he’d done so far.

“You expect me to listen to you, Sam? Look at what you’re doing . . . You got your answer, now get that thing out of her,” Dean cried as he kicked off the wall again and sweat dripped off of him from the strain on his knee.

“You heard what it said, Dean. It’s there. It’s just locked away.” _Are you fucking kidding me?_

“Cas put those blocks there . . . she doesn’t know . . . get rid of the demon, and we’ll talk.”

Sam shook his and said, “Yeah, but she knows enough to know when to keep her mouth shut, right?” before giving his orders to the demon. “Hide, I’ll call you out if I need you to verify her answers. If you do this, I’ll let you go.” 

Dean heard Beth panting in the tub and looked over to see that she was back. He hated knowing that thing was inside of her. He needed to focus more on getting out of these fucking cuffs, so he grabbed ahold of them, pushed off the wall again with renewed vigor and made the toilet move more this time. His concentration broke when he heard Beth try not to scream. _Fuck . . . not this Sam._ He couldn’t see her, but he could see Sam, and when she wouldn’t tell Sam where Lilith would be after Sam asked again, Sam lifted his hand in the air and squeezed. At the scream she let out the second time, Dean stopped watching his brother and pushed harder against the wall as blood started to trickle onto his hands from his wrists and water seeped out around him from the bottom of the toilet. He remembered what Sam had done to kill Alistair. There’s no way any meat suit would survive something like that. 

Sam asked her where Lilith would be again, and she still wouldn’t talk, so Sam cranked up the intensity on the third round. “Sam, if you ever want to make things right between us again, you have to get that thing out of her and let her go.” It wasn’t a threat. It was the truth. If Sam kept this up, then Dean wouldn’t be able to look at him the same no matter how hard he tried. 

Dean paused in his efforts to get free when he heard Beth struggle to sit up against the back of the tub. She needed to see him to remind herself that she wasn’t alone. You wouldn’t know it to look at her unless you knew her as well as he did, but she was scared, and she hadn’t been with Alistair or any other time since Dean had known her. At least when they were with Alistair, he’d thought he would be able to let her know she wasn’t alone by holding her hand through the worst of it until she was gone, but now he couldn’t even do that. For now the best he could do was let her know he was going to get her out of this and that she just needed to hold on a little longer. She nodded that she understood, but she was sweating and breathing shallow rapid breaths. He didn’t know how many more times she could survive this. At least Sam hadn’t done anything to her in the last minute. 

Sam hadn’t done anything because he was debating with himself on whether or not Dean actually meant what he’d said that last time. It had sounded genuine. He was debating until he caught the interaction between his brother and Elsbeth in the last half a minute. They didn’t even need to say anything out loud for them to know what the other one thought, and it made Sam hate her even more. Why did she deserve that sort of insight into his brother? Why did she get more trust from Dean than him? She came in from out of nowhere not even a year ago and Dean had chosen her over him time and time again. Things couldn’t go back to being the same between he and Dean anyway after what happened with Ruby. Having made his decision, Sam turned towards Elsbeth again but before he could say or do anything, his brother stopped him in his tracks. It wasn’t what Dean said, but how he’d said it that hurt and infuriated him at the same time, because Dean showed him the same kind of open hostility he used for things they hunted when his smart ass routine didn’t work. It was the type of bellow Dean used when he was desperate and trying to get a monster’s attention off of Sam and onto him, except now Dean was using it on him. “Sam! You want me to see what you can do? Throw some of your mojo my way. Leave her out of it.” 

“Why would I do that, Dean? For her? For you? What about Ruby? What about me?”

Dean immediately shouted, “What about you? You really think you have the right to do whatever the fuck you want because of these powers? Azazel gave them to you. That demon killed our Mom. He killed our Dad. What the fuck does that tell you about these powers, Sam?”

Sam crouched down to look him in the eye and coldly replied, “You want me to be the monster here? Or is it that you can’t stand the fact that I can do this on my own without you? You are too –“

Beth’s voice came out of nowhere and tiredly cut him off. “That’s enough. He doesn’t need to hear how much better you think you are than him. You’re not . . . if you were, you wouldn’t need the demon blood. And if you think you’re a better man than him, then think again . . . He came back from Hell a good man, but you . . . you didn’t even have to go to Hell to turn yourself into a demon.” 

Dean’s heartbeat noticeably increased. _Why the fuck would she say that?_ He looked from Beth to Sam and shook his head slightly to beg him not to do it as Sam stood up. “I’ll let you have a chance to save her when this is all over. I want to see what happens when you find out she was wrong, and you threw your brother away for her.” Beth glanced at Dean, and he just knew there were two things she wanted him to know. One was that as long as she was around, she wasn’t going to let anyone say those kinds of things to him, didn’t matter if it was Sam, Rachel, or a random person on the street. And the other was that she was sorry for what was about to happen, because she didn’t want him here for it. In fact, she slid back down to hide from him, as Sam turned around to ask her where Lilith was again. Of course she didn’t tell Sam anything, and Sam kept it up for a long time after she stopped screaming this time. Dean could tell by the death rattle he heard coming from the tub that he was running out of time to get to her. She was going to die in there alone with Sam being the last thing she saw.

“Where’s Lilith?” _Fuck. He isn’t gonna stop. This is it._

Dean struggled with his constraints while Beth weakly said, “I . . . don’t know.”

Sam moved to sit on the side of the tub and watched her, like he was debating on what to do now, so Dean shouted, “The demon . . . ask the fucking demon if she’s telling the truth or did you put it in her just to torture her?” He took a deep breath and went back to trying to get out of the fucking handcuffs when Sam called the demon out. These cuffs were too tight. He couldn’t even break his thumbs and get out of them.

“She doesn’t know . . . she doesn’t . . . you said if I –“

Sam cut the demon off and said, “I don’t believe that for a second. Go hide,” before he waited for Beth to come back and said, “I don’t think you’ll make it past another round of questioning, and I’ve got to give my brother a chance to save you . . . Ruby said I need to drain at least a whole human to be able to take on Lilith . . . I’m gonna start with you . . . if you want me to stop . . . tell me what I want to hear, and Dean will have his chance to save you.”

After that, Sam sat Beth up in the tub, so Dean could see her. She couldn’t even sit there on her own. Sam had to prop her up against the back of the tub while blood poured out of her nose and mouth. Sam had broken her . . . maybe not in spirit, but he’d completely destroyed her body. He never thought he’d feel about Sam the way he did just then.

Dean pushed off the wall again and nearly had it until he saw Sam take his knife and cut a small nick in her upper arm. Must’ve been an artery, because it started spraying everywhere until Sam lowered his mouth to take in long pulls off of it. It was still Beth who was awake to have it done to her. She was dying, but she was determined to fight until the end, or she tried to fight until Sam raised his hand above her to keep her from moving by using his powers on the demon inside of her. It was like watching a spider sucking a fly dry, except that this struggle put what used to be his brother at the top of the food chain. Despite what Sam had said about giving him a chance to save her, Sam wasn’t going to stop if this went on for much longer . . . Dean had seen that look on plenty of monsters, and seeing that look of hunger and satisfaction on his brother’s face . . . it made everything feel like up was down and down was up. It destroyed Dean’s worldview. He wasn’t strong enough to let this continue . . . it didn’t matter to him if it meant that Lucifer would be up here within the hour. If Sam wanted to prove that Beth was wrong and that Dean had been wrong to listen to her . . . then Sam could go kill Lilith and see for himself. Dean had no idea how close to them Lilith was, but it wasn’t here. He needed more than anything to make Sam get as far away from Beth as possible. If she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell Sam where Lilith was, then he knew someone that could.

“Chuck! Go talk to Chuck. You want me to see how wrong Beth is . . . go ask him where to find Lilith.”

Sam pulled away from Beth’s arm hesitantly and stood to back towards the door as he wiped her blood from his mouth. “It looks like you have a choice to make, Dean. You won’t take much longer to break out of that, so you can either come after me if you really think I’m going to release Lucifer, or you can try to save her,” Sam said turning to grab his things and leave the suite.

Dean didn’t know how much time he had before that demon decided to take control and walk away with Beth or if it was now too weak to even stop her from bleeding out. He kicked one last time with everything he had for as long as it took until the toilet was free from the floor. Then all he had to do was tip it over onto its side to get free. He needed to call Cas, but his phone had gotten broken in the fight with Sam. _Check on her first, and then go look for a hotel phone._ He pushed himself out of the pool of water and slid over to the tub. 

They’d been in the bathroom for maybe 15 minutes, and that’s all it’d taken for her to get where she was now. She was trying to stop the bleeding from her upper arm, with her other hand, but the blood was still pumping through her fingers, and her breathing was ragged. At least she hadn’t given up yet. “Dean, I grabbed my phone . . . from the other room . . . he took it before he brought us in here . . . didn’t get a chance to call Cas before . . . the demon.” _Good. Means I don’t have to leave her._

“Don’t take your hand off that arm. Where is it?”

She took a couple of breaths and said, “Jacket pocket . . . I grabbed a paperclip too . . . it’s in the front pocket . . . of my jeans . . . sorry I couldn’t get it to you sooner.”

He grabbed her phone from the jacket she’d tied around her waist and called Cas before he did anything else. She was going down hill fast. Hanging up, he untied her jacket from her waist to find the paperclip and saw why she’d tied the jacket around her. There was a lot more blood than he was expecting to find soaking through her jeans and shirt. The cut Sam made to her tattoo must’ve bled out more because of what Sam had done with his powers. Between that and the arm . . . Dean flicked his eyes to hers briefly, and she gave him a faint smile that let him know she knew exactly how bad it was before she said, “Just a flesh wound.” 

Dean got what he needed from her pocket, but he couldn’t play along with her on this one, so he didn’t say anything in response to her Holy Grail quote. He worked on the cuffs from where he was sitting, so he could stay close to her. Didn’t take him long to get them open. That’s right around when he felt Cas come into the room behind him, so he used the tub to get to his feet and out of Cas’s way. “Cas, can you get that demon out of her and put her on the bed in the other room.” Dean grabbed some towels while Cas pulled what was left of the demon out and smote it. As soon as it was gone, Cas gently picked her up from the tub, and Dean limped behind them into the next room. Cas stopped, and Dean saw that the bed had been destroyed, so he said, “Try the love seat.”

Once she was there, Dean tied one towel tightly around her upper arm and put the other one on her lower abdomen. “Dean, this is my fault.”

Leaving his left hand over her tattoo to keep pressure on it, he moved to awkwardly sit next to her on the sofa, so he could rest his forehead on hers and took a shaky breath before saying, “Beth, this is not your fault.”

She hesitated but gave a slight nod and said, “Ask me where Lilith will be.”

Dean stayed where he was and grabbed her hand to hold between them. He wanted her know it didn’t matter if she’d known the whole time. This still wasn’t her fault. “Dean, you need to ask.” No, he didn’t. She’d hold on longer if she hadn’t had a chance to tell him yet. “Cas–“

Dean gently squeezed her hand to make her stop and said, “Where’s the final seal go down?” He hadn’t wanted to ask her the same question Sam had over and over again, so he’d changed it up.

“Ilchester, Maryland . . . There’s an old convent, St. Mary’s . . . You can still stop this . . . Take Cas and go with your idea to trap her.” Dean wasn’t letting her say goodbye. That’s what she was gearing up to do, but it wasn’t over until it was over.

Dean sat up and looked at Cas. “What can you do for her?” 

“I’m sorry, Dean. I can’t heal anymore. I’ve been cut off from Heaven.” _I didn’t get her back from Alistair just to lose her to Sam._

“Well, can they take care of it at the hospital?”

Cas looked at her torso, like he was using X-ray vision and said, “There is internal hemorrhaging. I don’t think her heart and liver will last much longer. Her kidneys are shutting down. There’s more damage to other organs that are not as vital, but still important. There isn’t much they can do to treat the magnitude of crushing her organs have undergone.”

Dean went back to resting his forehead on hers before he closed his eyes and took a slow breath. He felt her hand on the side of his face, and then he heard her say, “Thanks for helping with the demon, Cas . . . Could you go get Anna? Maybe the two of you . . . can combine the energy from your grace and . . . heal Dean’s knee.” After Cas left, Dean asked if that’d really work. She said she didn’t know. He got the feeling that she’d mostly said it because she wanted to spend what time she had left with just him. _Don’t leave me._

He felt a tear fall, and she brushed it away for him before she said, “I don’t know what to do.” _Help me pick up the pieces the way you have all year._

Dean swallowed before he responded, “When they get back, I want you to let them try it on you first.” If it was a one and done kind of thing, he wanted it to go to her.

“What about –“

He stopped her by saying, “If you don’t make it, I’m not going after Lilith. Think I’ll say, ‘fuck it,’ and let the world burn.” 

She was quiet a little too long, so he opened his eyes and looked down at her face to make sure she was still alive. She was . . . barely. She was about as pale as she could get without actually being dead. Her lips were going blue. That had to be a bad sign. He touched his forehead to hers again, and she quietly asked if he was blackmailing her. He nodded, so she said, “Everything is the same and different. I don’t know what’s going to happen to you . . . If they can heal me, and not you . . . what am I supposed to do if you go after her with one good leg . . . and don’t come back . . . I don’t want to be left alone.”

He didn’t know what to say to that except, “Make some new friends . . . no hunters. Find a guy, settle down, have a family. You know the drill.”

She shook her head. “In the middle of the Apocalypse? Even if it wasn’t the end of life as we know it . . . I wouldn’t want that . . . I want my family, and that’s you, not anybody else.” _Where the hell are ya, Cas? I need you two here to try it on Beth._ “I’m sorry for doing this to you Dean . . . I’m –“

Dean quickly said, “I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to hold on until Cas comes back . . . Do it for me.“ 

She took a shallow, gravelly breath before she whispered, “I want to live, so I can take care of you, but . . . I don’t have a choice in it . . . I wish to God I did . . . my heart’d be good, and my liver would be good, and I wouldn’t be hemorrhaging . . . and I could stay with you longer . . . don’t take me dying as a sign I don’t want to be with you.” _Don’t worry. I don’t think you’re like Rachel._

“See, I thought it was my job to take care of you, not the other way around.”

She gave him the flicker of a smile and said, “I just let you think that, because you wouldn’t let me do it any other way.” Might be his imagination, but he thought she looked a little better. People tended to get a little better right before they . . . If this was it, he didn’t know what he was going to do . . . _I won’t let what Beth just went through be for nothing . . . I have to get rid of Lilith my way before Sam can do it his way. I have to stop it . . . Then I can drink until I forget that Beth’s dead and that Sam’s the one who murdered her . . . and say, ‘fuck it,’ and let the world do whatever the hell it wants. I’m done._


	36. The End Is Nigh

I heard Dean first in the blackness that encased me. _I hope he lets me sleep in this morning._ I heard an annoying beeping sound and wanted it to stop. “Dean turn-off the alarm. I don’t feel like getting up yet.” _God, my throat is killing me._ “Think I’m getting sick . . . my throat hurts.” Dean said my name from somewhere over me, so I opened my eyes and smiled when I saw him peering down at me. It took me another second or two to see that I was in a hospital room and that Cas was standing behind him. 

“Why am I here?”

Dean looked back at Cas and said, “Maybe some of the things Cas thought were bad before he left didn’t look as bad when he came back with Anna, so we brought you here.” _That’s weird. Cas wouldn’t get something like that wrong._ Cas seemed to have more of an opinion about it than he was willing to say at the moment.

“So, if I’m okay, why am I in the hospital?”

Cas fielded that one. “You were not okay. You just were not dying of a crushed heart, liver, or blood loss anymore.” _Anymore? So, Cas doesn’t think he got his diagnosis wrong, and Dean does?_ “Anna and I tried what you suggested, and we were able to heal one or two other serious injuries, but you needed to come here, so the doctors could take care of the rest. You have been in surgery for several hours.” _Several hours? What the hell are they doing here? What about Lucifer?_

“Whoa! It hasn’t happened yet. We still have time,” Dean exclaimed, while putting his hand on my arm to stop me from trying to tear out my IV. I looked at the splint on Dean’s leg and struggled to sit up again.

“You’re going to need my help.” Dean asked if Cas could give us a couple of minutes, so Cas went out into the hallway to give us some time alone. 

“If I was going to live, why didn’t you let them heal your leg instead of me?” I slumped back into my pillow at the sad look Dean gave me and focused on raising the head of my bed using the button next to my hand. I liked pushing buttons, and I didn’t want to see that sad look.

When I was comfortable he said, “You weren’t okay . . . You weren’t dying that second, but you would’ve been dead in a couple of days. Even if they’d healed you all the way, I was never going to bring you. If Sam turns up before I can make her disappear, I need to get him to see he’s wrong about killin’ her, and I can’t do that if you’re there.” _Yeah, I think we can safely say that Sam would not listen to you if I'm there, and it’s not just because I killed Ruby. He thinks I’ve taken you away from him._

“What if I promise to hide in the car when he gets there?”

Dean gave me a brief smile and said, “I’m not taking her with me this time, so that works for me.” _Cas is taking him straight there. Sam had a long drive ahead of him, and he had to get in touch with Chuck first, so Dean should beat him there depending on how long I was in surgery. Hopefully, Chuck didn’t answer the phone. Hopefully, Sam doesn’t hurt him if he goes to see him in person. Hopefully, Chuck decided to ditch his phones and leave town._ I took a deep breath and absentmindedly grabbed the ice chips next to my bed before I wondered what they were doing there. Maybe someone had gotten them for me, because they knew my throat would feel like I’d had razor blades dancing down it.

I munched on one of those and said, “So, you’re taking Cas?” I glanced up at Dean, and it would appear not. “For the same reason you’re not taking me? You don’t think Sam will listen to you if someone else is there. Cas is just sending you there on your own?” Yeah, that would appear to be the case. 

I didn’t want to be left behind and would make my own way there if I had to do it and was about to say that when Dean preemptively said, “If you con Cas into taking you, then Lucifer will be out by tomorrow.”

I frowned at him and replied, “If you don’t want Sam to see me, I understand that, but there are going to be demons crawling all over that convent, and then there’s Lilith. What about them? Cas and Anna are like two-halves of one angel, and we’re two-halves of one person. Together we could make one whole angel and one whole person . . . all right, maybe not a whole person . . . more like ¾ of a person if I’m only half a person to begin with . . . but you know what I mean.”

He looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath before he looked back down at me to say, “Beth, we’ve only got one shot at this. I need my focus on the demons and Lilith . . . I can’t be worried about you too.”

_But I’m okay._ I looked down at my ice chips and grabbed another one to keep myself distracted from the thought that this might be the last time I saw him. “I know you aren’t going to stand by and let the Apocalypse happen if I –“ _Die?_ I looked up at him, and he sighed before continuing, “If that happens, I want you to stay with Cas. That way you won’t be alone, and I know he’ll look out for you.” I looked down again and grabbed another ice chip.

“So, you're handing custody of me over to Cas in the event of your untimely demise? What about Bobby?” 

Dean sat on the edge of the bed the best that he could with his busted up leg and said, “Bobby likes you and all, and I trust him to have my back, but I don’t trust him to have yours as much as I do Cas if you’re going to keep hunting.” I sighed and asked him why. He looked at the floor and answered, “I know Bobby was all for you killing Ruby if it meant Sam wouldn’t get pissed at me for doing it . . . He may not have thought Sam would do what he did, but he wasn’t looking out for you either.”

I glanced at him and responded, “Cas gave me the angel blade that I used to kill her.”

Dean shook his head. “Cas was planning on giving you that anyway, so you can protect yourself. And you didn’t tell him you were killing Ruby just so you could take on Lilith yourself while I got Sam back into rehab.” 

I slumped and picked up another ice chip before I said, “Bobby told you that too, huh?”

Dean quickly responded, “Yeah, he told me, and there’s no way that Cas would let you do something like that.”

I stuck the ice in my mouth and muttered, “I had a feeling that I knew where Lilith was going to be for the final seal. I figured if Ruby let her know that Sam was back on track after he ran away from rehab, Lilith would still go wherever that was. If Ruby was dead, she couldn’t tell Lilith that you’d taken Sam back to rehab, so Lilith would still go there. I was going to have Cas ask me where Lilith was going to be for the final seal, and then as long as there weren’t any angel wards at wherever that was, I was going to have him shoot her with a devil’s trap bullet. I didn’t know how closely the angels were going to be watching her, but I figured if he trapped her, and took her somewhere they wouldn’t expect, we could cut her up there, and then he and Anna could disperse her body parts around the world the way you’re planning to do it around the country. I wouldn’t have done it alone.”

Dean exhaled before he said, “Doesn’t change anything. You didn’t tell Bobby that. I want you to stay with Cas.” _So, I ruined things between Dean and Sam, and I made Dean doubt Bobby? Fan-fucking-tastic._

Dean nudged me to get my attention and said, “So, that was your plan?” I nodded and looked away from him, because it was a stupid plan in light of the way it turned out. “And you didn’t tell me, because . . . “

I ducked my head and answered, “I didn’t want to chance that Ruby would read your mind and know I was on the other side of the door, and honestly, I didn’t want you to try and keep me from doing it.”

Dean got me to look at him again and said, “Wasn’t a bad plan . . . Even if the rest of it didn’t work out, you got the Ruby thing right.” _Yeah, but on top of putting a dent in the two most important relationships in his life, it’s my fault he got hurt the way he did, and if he dies now because he got hurt, it’ll be my fault too. He’s paying the price for my mistakes._

I went to shake my head, and he said, “What happened after you killed Ruby wasn’t your fault –“ _It was my fault._

“If I hadn’t killed her, then none of this would’ve happened, and you wouldn’t be hurt and –“

He put his hand over mine to get me to stop and said, “I’m just putting my house in order . . . doesn’t mean I don’t plan on coming back.” I hung my head and asked when he was going. “Now. I need to try and get some recon of the convent done if I can. I told Cas to get you out of here if he sees a sign that Lucifer is out . . . I don’t know what to expect if that cage opens, but I’d feel better knowing you were near Bobby’s bunker instead of here if you can’t move around all that well. Stay there until you’re better, and then if you’re really not going to give up hunting, do it with Cas and stay away from Sam . . . That reminds me. Saw you kick this under the bed. Thought you might want it back.” He took my angel blade out of the inside of his jacket and put it on the bed under the covers next to my hand.

“Thanks. I didn’t think I should . . . I didn’t want to -”

He leaned forward to silence me with a hug and waited half a minute before he said, “I did the same thing.” He wasn’t going to give me a hard time about not doing whatever it took to put Sam down, because he hadn’t either. 

The longer I stayed in his arms, the more I didn’t want him to go. I hated this. Everything I said when we thought I was dying still stood. I knew he thought Cas was an acceptable replacement for him, or he wouldn’t have told me to stay with Cas, and the fact that he was still trying to look out for me by setting that up, so I wouldn’t be alone was just really . . . sweet, but I didn’t want to lose him. He couldn’t be replaced. 

A couple of minutes later, he said, “I better get going,” before he leaned back, gently pressed his lips to my forehead, and let me go, so he could stand and limp his way towards the door. When he put his hand on the door handle, he stopped and kept his back to me as he asked, “How would you have handled it different … me going to Hell?” He still thought he was going to Hell if he died. This was my chance to make up for what Rachel did to him. I didn’t want to screw it up, but I knew I probably would. I wasn’t around then, so anything I said about it would seem like I didn’t know what I was talking about. I tried to focus on the here and now and cut out the hypothetical of what I would’ve done back then.

“I don’t think you’ll go to Hell if things go wrong with Lilith, because I honestly believe you were given a full pardon and not just a reprieve until the Apocalypse is sorted, but if you do end up there again, I won’t let you become something you don’t want and were never meant to be. I’ll find you. I know an angel who got you out once already, so he’s the ideal guide. This won’t be the last I see of you . . . if things go wrong.” 

He turned and said, “Any chance I could get your word not to do that,” as he walked back over to my bed.

“No, and I’ll give you 3 reasons why. 1. I already said I’d come find you, and I can’t go back on that now. 2. Sneaking into Hell to get you out is the only way I know to show you how much you mean to me. And 3. I need to try out my shiny new angel sword,” I answered with small smile before I popped another ice chip in my mouth. My throat was starting to close up at the thought of him dying, and I needed to hide it, because he didn’t need to have anything like that distracting him from the mission he was going on now. Just like always, whenever it had anything to do with Dean, I struggled to control what I was feeling.

He looked back at the door and paused half a second before he leaned over me to press his lips to mine. He always caught me off guard when he did that, but I always returned what he was offering, and this time was no different, except this time meant more, because we may have lost the chance to explore this further if he didn’t return. It was something I didn’t even know I seriously wanted to explore until there was a chance I may not be able to anymore. The kiss was slow and gentle and lingered as we tried to remember all of the details of it and of one another. It was a goodbye of sorts, so it was full of loss and regret, or that’s the way it felt.

When we parted I could feel tears quietly trailing down my cheeks, which I’d never had happen before in my life. With me only having half a soul, I didn’t think I was capable of crying, and it was . . . well, it was embarrassing. I felt stupid. He pressed his forehead to mine and wiped them away with his hand before saying that he’d find a way to let me know either way when it was done. Cas came in behind him then and said they needed to go, and with that Dean reluctantly stepped back and was gone. 

When Cas came back from seeing Dean off, I asked him to put on one of the news channels as he sat down in the chair next to me. He didn’t even need to use the remote. He just made the TV come on by itself and used his mind to flip through the channels until he found the news. It was pretty cool. I figured if something happened, we would hear about it on there first. Well, Cas might know before that if he felt a change in the Force, but I wouldn’t. I was glad he was with me even if he should have gone with Dean. I guess if it came down to it, Dean would be able to get through to Sam better if he was on his own and didn’t have an angel on his shoulder that Sam didn’t seem to like. 

I couldn’t focus on the TV, and I couldn’t sleep. I was buzzing with nervous energy. Just as I felt like I couldn’t take anymore of the pretending I was okay while watching the news, Cas put his hand on my shoulder. I instantly felt calm and realized I needed help feeling that way more and more these days. “Why do my emotions keep getting the better of me? I’m used to being able to control them, but it’s getting harder to do.”

Cas thought for a moment and said, “You are rebuilding the parts of your soul that were taken. All souls have scars, but the missing pieces in your soul are being filled in along the edges with something new. I didn’t think it was possible . . . of course I didn’t think it was possible to tear apart a soul without completely destroying it. The more you rebuild, the more emotions you will feel and express. It will take time to learn how to control them they way you could when I met you.”

Well I wasn’t expecting to hear that. “Does that mean I’ll be horrible like Rachel was if I have those parts of me back? Can I stop that from happening?” 

“This is a good thing, but if you are worried about it, these parts are new. They are not the same parts you had when you were created . . . They shine in a way I have not seen.” _So, I’m making myself the way I want to be?_

“Will I still be able to keep angels from knowing what I’m thinking?” I had to be able to do that with more of them being around down here.

“What you are actually doing is disrupting the wavelengths that your thoughts transmit to us. You are not the first human to be able to do that, but it is rare. It requires willpower, focus, and an absolute knowledge of self. Having more emotions could make it more challenging. I could train with you on being able to maintain that ability while we train with your blade.” I was looking forward to angel blade training and getting to know him better. 

“What’s the deal with me being alive right now, Cas? You wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. Something happened. Is it because of this soul rebuilding thing?”

“It was not because of your soul, but I have no explanation for it. I think that maybe you armed yourself in every conceivable and inconceivable way possible to aid you in your mission. This may be one of the inconceivable ways.” Well, I didn’t fix myself. I knew that much.

"Yeah, but why didn’t it happen with Alistair? I think I was in equally bad predicaments both times.”

Cas shook his head and said, “Perhaps something different was said or done this time.” _Sure would be useful if we could figure it out what it was. I bet if I still had my memories of Heaven, I’d know. I wonder what hid those. Was it God, or whichever angels took care of me when I was living my fake normal life? It seems different than what Cas did to hide my memories of the future from that TV show._

“I know that you are still annoyed with me for having done that, but whoever let you see the Winchester’s future intended to do the same thing. Perhaps not for season 4, but for the seasons beyond that until you needed them. Even letting you remember that much was not safe for you. You had already been mistreated before we met in that barn. It angered me, so I hid the rest.” _Why’d that make him mad?_

“You have suffered enough and what happened today would not have happened were it not for you knowing about their future.” _So, you’re pretty angry about today, huh?_ Cas looked down and said, “I am. I still do not understand why you would allow yourself to be put in such danger for a hopeless endeavor. Fate cannot be changed.”

I watched him and said, “I don’t know. Pamela Barnes might beg to differ. Adam Milligan, his Mom, and Jimmy Novak’s family might as well.” 

“We have discussed this many times, and this is the first you have mentioned this.” _I didn’t feel like I had to defend my choices until now._

Cas wanted me to explain what I was talking about, so I said, “When something is different from the future I saw, your memory blocks on that storyline are completely removed, so I know it’s been changed. I know Pamela was supposed to be blinded in a séance the day we met you in the barn, and she wasn’t, because I told Dean you were what pulled him out of Hell, so he didn’t have to go to her to find out. She was supposed to die in that motel room on the reaper seal, but she could see, and I was there to take the demon’s attention off of her, so she didn’t. I know Adam and his Mom were supposed to be killed by ghouls, but they weren’t, because Dean and I killed the ghouls first. Pamela being alive is a happy accident. Adam and his Mom staying alive was a calculated change in Fate. Either way Fate was changed because of things I knew about the future, so I know it can be.” 

Cas settled into his chair more and then he said, “My vessel wants to know what you meant when you said what you said about his family’s fate being changed.” Sometimes it was hard to remember there was another person inside there with Cas.

“You left Heaven earlier than intended, and as a consequence, you were never expelled from Jimmy. He didn’t go home to his family, and they weren’t attacked by demons. Amelia wasn’t possessed. You would’ve been released from Heaven in time to help Sam and Dean try to save his family, but you would’ve been reprogrammed, so you would’ve gotten consent from Claire to take her as a vessel in order to coerce Jimmy into taking you back. It wouldn’t have been very nice of you, but it would’ve worked. They would’ve lived, but the entire incident would’ve ruined their lives. Now Amelia won’t leave Claire to go looking for you to get Jimmy back only to be taken prisoner by a Grigori and fed on for years. Claire won’t grow up on the streets without her when her Grandmother dies. If any of that was going to happen, I wouldn’t know about it now.” 

Cas was quiet for a couple of minutes before he said, “He wants to know if I will look after his family better than in the future you saw.” _Jimmy’s getting a little restless, is he?_

“I thought vessels were mostly unaware of what was going on out here while they’re in there.”

Cas sighed and said, “You said his name and mentioned his family. It drew his attention.” _Interesting._

“You could tell him that by working with you on trying to stop the Apocalypse, he is looking after his family. A world without the Apocalypse is better for them than a world with one . . . if he wants to think of it that way.” Cas nodded before he looked away and I’m guessing tried to put Jimmy’s mind at ease. 

About 10 minutes later, I was getting tired, so to stay awake, I said, “You don’t know who hid my memories of what happened in Heaven or who gave me a life while Dean was in Hell, do you?”

Cas looked a little frustrated and answered, “No, I only know that they are much more powerful than I am. If we could find who did it, we would have a strong ally.” _You’re our strong ally, Cas._ He gave me a look that said he wasn’t strong. I smiled and changed the subject because I didn’t want to get into a metaphysical debate on differences of strength when it came to angels, de-powered angels, and humans . . . I was too tired for that. 

“Any idea what I was like up there? Do you think I was the way I am now?”

He almost eagerly sat forward and said, “I have had someone that I trust in Heaven looking into your time spent there, and you were not as well hidden as those that imprisoned you thought you to be. Many angels came across you and were all sworn to secrecy as I was, but most never saw you again. From what we can tell, you found a way to break out of Heaven’s prison at least 100 times over the years, and the furthest back that we have been able to find sightings of you occurred when your earthly age would have been 10.” _100 prison breaks in 19 years? Not bad. Ha. Sightings. I’m like the Loch Ness Monster of Heaven._

“You were found most often in those early years in the libraries, because you were searching for answers as to your identity. You are the one who found those prophecies that Joshua told me to give to Dean. As with other things that you wanted to protect, you destroyed the original scripts after you were done reading them although -” For some reason, what he’d said created a seismic shift in my brain.

My heart started racing, and I found myself saying, “The first time I broke out, I was actually 6. I asked the first angel I found what a North Star was, because that’s all they ever called me, and . . . you’re right. That’s why I broke out. I wanted to know what I was . . . all I ever saw were angels, and I knew I wasn’t one of them . . . but the guards weren’t far behind me, so I had to go back to my cell . . . the next time I got out . . . I hid better and found another angel, but he turned me into his supervisor, because he thought I was an abomination, and the supervisor took me back to the prison, because she knew where I was supposed to be . . . then I started getting out and not asking angels for help, because when I got sent back, I was punished . . . I passed a library one time and saw angels studying in there . . . I thought maybe the answers I wanted were in the things they were reading, because they got answers from them, so I stole the first scroll I found and hid with it in a corner of Heaven for weeks. I struggled through, but eventually figured out what it said. I thought of it as a puzzle. First I figured out the smaller words that only had one or two letters, and then I used that to figure out the letters in the other words until it made sense. After that I -”

Cas looked regretful and stopped me. “I should not have said anything to you about this. I did not realize that your memory blocks have weakened because of what happened with Sam. There is a difference between being told about it and remembering it, and you are not ready to remember these things yet. You need to sleep.” 

I don’t know how long I was out, but I woke up to Cas saying, “It’s happening,” and something inside of me broke. Everything went numb in an instant. _Sam’s the only one who could have killed her, so what happened to Dean? Why wasn’t he able to get rid of her before Sam got there? If it’s happening now, she must’ve just died . . . Dean went there hours ago. Was he dead before Sam showed up?_

Cas went to grab my things that Dean had packed for me at some point and helped me unhook my IV before he helped me put on my clothes. Cas was doing what Dean told him to do if this happened I guess, because I didn’t have to tell him to do anything. He just did it for me, and angels aren’t exactly built to be assisted living healthcare providers. I tucked my angel blade under my jacket, so I could keep it close. _Dean just gave this back to me, and now he’s . . . Stop it. You don’t know what happened._ It was better to feel nothing until I knew for sure he was gone. We needed to get to Bobby’s. My memories should be updated if Lucifer was really up here among us. I looked up at the TV screen just as they began issuing a special report about a possible attack near Baltimore, Maryland. I paused for a heartbeat to watch until Cas placed his hand on my shoulder and took me out of the last place I saw Dean.


End file.
